


Resonance

by RecklessDaydreamer



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb/Astrid but it's background, Gen, Murder Mystery, Timeline Shenanigans, a large number of ocs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-06-16 08:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15432705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecklessDaydreamer/pseuds/RecklessDaydreamer
Summary: When the Mighty Six turn up on his doorstep, Archmage Caleb Widogast finds himself swept into their investigation of a crime twenty years gone. But the murder of Trent Ikithon isn’t just any cold case, and as impossible coincidences start to pile up, Caleb and the Mighty Six discover a far stranger mystery.((Now with additional meta and liner notes!))





	1. A Dark and Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> resonance, n. 1. The motion of the aftereffects of a change. 2. The ability to remain stable while shifting. 3. The recognition of deeply held truth.

Spring is cold in Rexxentrum. It rains constantly, leaving the cobblestones damp and cool to the touch. At night, storms blow down from the mountains, sweeping clouds of curling smoke from chimneys and flooding the skies with rain.

The library on the second floor of Widogast Mansion is warmed by a roaring fire. Still, when rain rattles the windows, Caleb Widogast tucks himself deeper into the high-backed armchair beside the hearth. He makes a note in the journal balanced on the arm of the chair and turns the page. Another gust of wind and rain, and he sighs, pulls his coat closer around his shoulders.

After another dozen pages, he hears footsteps. That in itself is unusual; the plush carpet of the library swallows most sound. But his wife tends to shuffle her feet when she’s tired.

“ _Ja_ , _hallo, reinkommen_ ,” Caleb says, raising his voice enough to carry.

“You could never keep me out,” Astrid replies in somewhat slurred Zemnian, crossing the room to lean on the back of his armchair. She sounds bone-tired.

Caleb reaches a hand up and places it over Astrid’s. In Zemnian, he asks, “Have you finished the elixir?”

“Nearly. Three hours to boil off the adamantine and then the final cooling cycle.” She lets her head fall on their clasped hands.

“Do you have a stasis field on it, _Schatz_?”

“Yes, _Liebling_ ,” Astrid says, parroting back the pet name. “Lab safety. You read my mind.”

“I did not cast a spell.”

“We’re married, Caleb, I do not think we need magic for that.” Even exhausted, Astrid manages to turn his words into flirtation. Caleb closes his book, turns enough to kiss her cheek.

“Also,” Astrid adds, still leaning on the back of the chair, “on the topic of lab safety. If I stay up any longer you will find me face down in a beaker of acid in the morning.”

“Three hours until the last phase starts?” Astrid nods. Caleb squeezes her hand. “Go to bed. I’ll wake you at one-fifteen.”

“Ah, Caleb, this is why I married you.” She’s smiling; Caleb can hear it in her voice, and he smiles back, though she can’t see it. “You have to go to bed too. I’ll be done by two. Then sleep.”

“I have to finish this for tomorrow,” Caleb says, holding up his book.

“No. If I have to sleep, so do you. You always get headaches when you don’t and I will not be awake to fix a headache before your meeting.”

“All right, _Schatz_ , all right. I will sleep.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Astrid leaves, and Caleb sinks back into his book. It’s nearly eleven now; he has two hours and twenty-six minutes, which means three hundred pages if he reads quickly.

Caleb is deep into a chapter on mental abjuration when the doorbell spell rings in his head. He shuts it off with a thought before it wakes Astrid, who shares the attunement to all the spells they’ve laid on the mansion, and spends a moment wondering who’s on his doorstep this late, and whether he can get away with leaving them and going back to his book.

The spell rings again.

And then it rings four more times in succession, as though someone is jumping up and down on the doorstep.

Caleb puts down his book and hurries out of the library, through the hall, and down the stairs to the front door. He’s about to say something about how it’s eleven-thirty, his wife is sleeping, who goes around ringing doorbell spells this time of night—

but instead he freezes in the doorway.

There are six people on the doorstep, all cloaked and hooded against the gusting rain. Caleb snaps his fingers, lighting the lanterns on either side of the door to see them better. A blue tiefling dressed in lace and silk is standing right on the step, hand raised to knock. There’s a half-orc in leather armor and a Cobalt Soul monk flanking her. Behind them, a purple tiefling wearing absolutely the most ostentatious coat Caleb has ever seen and a tall, pale woman who he’d lay money is an aasimar are trying to look inconspicuous, and a small, cloaked figure raising a flask to her mouth is tucked in between them. It’s not the strangest group he’s ever seen, but it’s close.

He opens his mouth to ask why they’re there so late at night, and what comes out is, “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so,” the blue tiefling says, “but maybe! You look pretty familiar.”

The Cobalt monk is eyeing him. “Yeah, you do.” She sounds suspicious, like Caleb sold her bad ale. Something tells him he wouldn’t dare.

“Jester, Beau,” the half-orc says, “maybe we should introduce ourselves.” He looks at Caleb. “Sorry to get you up so late, Archmage Widogast, but we’ve been sent from Zadash with a pretty important mission. We’re the Mighty Six. I’m Fjord.”

The monk nods. “Beau.”

“I’m Jester,” the blue tiefling says brightly.

From the back of the group, the purple tiefling inclines his head. “Mollymauk. Molly to my friends.”

The aasimar glances at him, then back to Caleb. “My name is Yasha.”

“And I’m Nott,” the cloaked figure pipes up. “Wait, I wasn’t gonna say that!”

“We were sent by Lawmaster Orentha Stormgrasp,” the half-orc— Fjord— says. “She told us to talk to you.” He pauses. “Uh, you _are_ Archmage Widogast, right?”

It’s eleven-thirty-five on a dark, stormy night. Caleb has two hundred more pages to read if he’s going to be ready for the conference tomorrow. One of the most motley groups he’s ever seen in his life has turned up on his doorstep with a mission from the Crownsguard. This cannot possibly end well.

“I am Archmage Widogast,” he says. “Headmaster of the Soltryce Academy as well, but please, call me Caleb. And you didn’t wake me up. You might have woken my wife, though.” He opens the door fully, wincing at the chill of the rain. “Please, come in.”

The Mighty Six troop inside, and Caleb guides the Six into the parlor just off the front hall. Less formal. A wave of his hand, and the oil lamps flicker alive, turning the shadows gold. He can feel the precautionary anti-magic field settling over the Six and glancing off his attunement to it.

“This is quite a lot of books,” Molly says in a tone he must think is quiet. “Is this a library?”

“Nah,” Beau says, “can’t be. This is just the parlor.” Nobody looks at her askance, but her shoulders tense up anyway. “I mean, he’s the headmaster, right? Gotta have a bunch more books somewhere.”

“You are correct,” Caleb says, pretending he doesn’t notice how Beau twitches in surprise. “This is the parlor. The library proper is upstairs. But my collection has… overflowed somewhat.” He waves the Mighty Six toward the chairs and couches arranged in a circle to one side. “Sit. I’ll be a moment.” Caleb crosses the room to kneel over the fireplace, giving the Six a moment to speak in privacy and himself a chance to message Astrid. He thumbs the copper wire wound around his wrist and says softly, “We have visitors. Don’t bother coming down.”

He’s willed a fire into existence, guiding it from kindling into a blaze, by the time Astrid sends a reply. It’s largely incoherent, as Astrid’s messages tend to be when she’s mostly asleep, but the gist is that she’s sure he can handle it, and if not, make Eodwulf come and help.

“Love you too,” Caleb sends back. “Go to sleep.”

 

Across the room, Beau can’t sit still. Something feels viscerally _wrong_ to her, and her intuition has never failed her before.

“Something’s wrong,” she finally says, cutting across whatever Fjord was saying. “This guy— whoever he is— Headmaster Archmage, Caleb, whoever— ugh, _fuck_.”

Molly nods. “You’re right. He just… isn’t what I expected.”

They turn and look at the wizard, who’s bent over the hearth, lighting a fire. The orange light shines on his green velvet coat and neatly cut red hair.

“He’s exactly who he’s supposed to be,” Yasha says.

Jester leans in. “Are we talking about Caleb? He’s really clean.”

“He’s rich, he can afford that,” Beau points out.

Jester shakes her head. “No, he doesn’t look like he _should_ be.”

Fjord nods in agreement. “He doesn’t.”

Beau snaps her fingers, recalling what Caleb had said in the doorway. “He’s married, too! Why is he married?”

“You’re right,” Yasha muses, “he did say that. Does that seem odd to any of you? Other than Beau, I mean?”

Jester nods. “I guess I didn’t really think he’d be that kind of guy, really.”

“He should have a cat,” Nott says, taking a swig from her flask. It’s not the first she’s drunk tonight, nor the first since Caleb opened the door, and Beau would worry if she hadn’t seen Nott drink as much before.

“I agree,” Yasha says. “He should have a cat.”

Molly runs his hand along the back of the couch, then holds it up to show. “No cat hair.”

“Maybe it’s a hairless cat,” Jester suggests.

“Hairless?” Beau asks.

“Oh, yes! They’re just all skin and no hair.”

Molly leans back, hands laced behind his head. “Terrifying.”

Just then, Caleb stands from the hearth and walks back toward them, and the discussion of his catlessness ends. Beau's unease, however, doesn't.

 

Caleb seats himself in the remaining armchair and addresses the Mighty Six. “You were sent by Lawmaster Stormgrasp?”

“Yup,” Beau says. “We’re on retainer. Technically.”

“Ah.” They aren’t dressed in Crownsguard colors— must be an adventuring party. “And why did you come to me?”

Fjord leans forward, hands open on his knees. “She thought you might be able to help us. We’re supposed to investigate a cold case. A murder.”

“We are the _best_ investigators,” Jester says, “me and Nott, especially, but everyone else too.”

“We’re really good,” Nott says.

Caleb nods. “How cold is this case?”

“Twenty years,” Fjord says.

Caleb sighs. “I was not even at the Academy twenty years ago. Why does the Lawmaster think I will be of service?”

The Six share a glance that seems to say many things. Caleb catches some of it, he thinks: Jester’s curiosity, suspicion from Beau.

Molly speaks first. He shifts forward on the couch, tail twitching. “Have you ever heard the name Trent Ikithon?”

“I have heard of him, but I did not know him,” Caleb says. That’s the truth, but he can see not all of the Mighty Six believe it. “His disappearance occurred before I started my studies.”

Beau eyes him, sharp. “The Lawmaster thinks he was murdered.”

“ _Ja_ , I know that.”

“You said he disappeared.”

“That is, ah, the party line. A motive was never found. Nor a murderer.” Caleb sighs. “This information— it is highly classified. I am not certain what I can tell you.”

“We’ve been sent by a Lawmaster,” Fjord says. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“ _Ja_ , well, it does, but even the Lawmaster… Orentha Stormgrasp is a good woman, but she does not know everything.”

“I’m from the Cobalt Soul,” Beau says, and looks a little startled at herself. “I should have clearance, or something, right?”

“You might, but they would not.” Caleb stands from his chair. “Give me a moment to get us drinks.”

“Drinks?” Molly says. “Well, this should be interesting.”

“Shh, I want a drink,” Jester says, flicking him with her tail.

There’s a small cabinet of liquors on the back wall of the parlor, with a shelf of tankards and glasses below. Astrid had stocked it, declaring that mixing drinks was close enough to mixing potions. She’d spent an afternoon attempting to teach Caleb to make cocktails, but he had never been much of an alchemist. Caleb sets a jug of ale on the sideboard. There are two bottles of whiskey; he chooses the better of the two and puts it beside the ale.

What is it about this group that caught his attention? They’re familiar, in a way. He told them to call him Caleb, rather than any of the titles he’s worked so hard for. Not Archmage, not Headmaster. And he let them in so late at night, without even checking for permits or passes.

Three tankards and four glasses join the liquor on the sideboard. No milk in the cabinet, but there must be some in the kitchen; he opens the hinged panel on the wall and reaches through, his hand finding the wall of the icebox and then the cold surface of a bottle of milk. The dimensional pocket’s multiple access points and eternal freezing charm had taken him several days to set up, but it’s paid off.

As he pours the drinks, his mind whirls. There’s something about the Mighty Six. He can’t figure out why, but he feels like he knows them, and some part of him has decided he likes them.

Another part of him is very certain they’re a pack of assholes. Good ones, maybe. But assholes nonetheless.

Caleb puts the drinks on a tray and turns around, about to walk back to the group. He looks down at the tray in his hands. Two tankards of ale, four glasses of whiskey, and a tankard of milk.

The Six are talking amongst themselves. He draws a surge of arcane energy with his next breath and interrupts, not moving from his spot across the room. “You did not give me your drink orders.”

“No,” Molly says slowly. “We didn’t.”

“But now I have—“ Caleb looks down at the tray again— “two ales, four whiskeys, and one milk. The ale is for Beauregard and Yasha. The whiskey is for Fjord, Mollymauk, Nott, and myself, although I suspect Nott does not actually need the whiskey, as she has alcohol on her person already. The milk is for Jester. Am I correct?”

“Yeah,” Beau says, “that’s right. That’s exactly right.”

“I want the whiskey anyway,” Nott says.

“How did I know that, do you think?” Caleb asks.

There’s a pause.

“Lucky guess,” Molly suggests.

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “I went out of my way to get Jester a tankard of milk. I doubt that is due to chance.”

“Could it be magic?” Fjord asks. “Some sort of spell? I didn’t cast anything.”

“Neither did I,” Jester says.

“You couldn’t have. This room is under an anti-magic field. I am attuned to it—” Caleb summons a flame in the air between them, to demonstrate— “but you are not. And I protect myself against arcane influences. I have not been affected by magic in any way.” He finally crosses the room, stepping between Fjord’s armchair and the couch Molly, Yasha, and Jester are sharing to put the tray down on the low table. “I have never met any of you in my life, and I would remember if I had, but I know exactly which drinks to pour and who they are for.”

“It might be the Traveler, maybe,” Jester suggests.

“The Traveler?” Caleb asks.

“Yes! He might play a prank like that, making you know what drinks we want.”

“Who is the Traveler?”

“Well, he’s a god, sort of,” Jester explains. “He wears a green cloak, and he taught me magic.”

Caleb decides to leave that for the time being. “Divine intervention could be a possibility, I suppose.” He sits in his armchair and downs half the glass of whiskey in one gulp. “Regardless. Something is, ah, afoot.”

Fjord takes a long drink from his own glass. “It’s getting pretty late. I know this case is confidential and all, but seeing as something’s up, could you see your way to giving us the details?”

The fire and the lamps are burning dim, but Caleb can feel every spark and flame. A benefit of his strength in fire. He exhales slowly, brings the lamps to the edge of flaring, and then lets the arcane energy go again. Outside, the wind howls faintly. Rain batters the windows.

“The disappearance of Trent Ikithon occurred in mid-morning on the twenty-third of Horisal in 816. Midwinter, a nice day by most accounts. He was walking down the Platinum Way— do you know it? A boulevard that runs across Rexxentrum.”

“All praise to the Platinum Dragon,” Molly says.

Caleb blinks at him. “I did not think you were a believer.”

“Oh, _well_ ,” Molly says, in a way that means he probably isn’t. Neither is Caleb, particularly.

Caleb continues, “Trent was about to be elected to the Cerberus Assembly. He would have been the Archmage of Civil Influence. Idina Lysoth is in that position now, because Trent disappeared the morning he should have officially joined. As he walked from the Academy— he visited there to observe the students, and as he walked from the Academy to be formally raised to the Assembly, he vanished.”

“Just like that?” Jester asks.

“ _Ja_ , just like that. There was a blast of white light, and when the light faded, he was gone.”

Beau’s expression says she doesn’t like this at all. “Nobody saw anyone cast a spell? He didn’t cast anything on himself?”

“The Assembly commissioned an investigation. They found traces of arcane energy, but no source.” Caleb looks around at the Six; Beau shows a hint of understanding what that means, but she’s hiding it, and nobody else seems to get it. “Magic cannot be sourceless. It is always created, whether by a spellcaster, an enchanted item, or divine influence. But whatever or whoever made Trent Ikithon disappear, well, we cannot find them.”

“He just _exploded_?” Nott asks, her reedy voice rising incredulously.

“Maybe, yes. We do not know.”

Nott takes a swig from her flask. It’s a never-ending flask, if Caleb had to guess, which is an impressive enchantment. He’ll have to remember to ask her where she got it.

But later. Right now… “I’ve explained what I know. I think it is only right for you to tell me what you know, and why you have been sent.”

The Mighty Six share a glance. “You’ve pretty much heard it,” Fjord says. “The Lawmaster sent us to solve Trent’s murder. She wants us to figure out who killed him. Don’t know why she thinks we can, if a team from the Assembly couldn’t.”

Caleb shakes his head. “She wouldn’t know about the team from the Assembly. The Crownsguard did an investigation— the Lawmaster would know of that— but the Assembly’s inquiry was more classified. I only know about it because I am in the Assembly.”

“Should you be telling us this?” Beau asks. “Y’know, the confidential… stuff?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure I can help it.” Caleb gestures around. “With all this, whatever is making us know each other. Something tells me that, ah, I have to.”

“Do you believe in that?” Molly asks. “Fate, luck, the gods. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Anything is possible,” Caleb says.

“A complete non-answer,” Molly says with a grin. “I like that. So that’s really everything you know, then? This Trent fellow just… vanished? In a burst of light?”

“ _Ja_ , but you must understand, these events are twenty years gone. What we know is apocryphal at best, planted rumor at worst. Anything you all can uncover will most likely be the same.” Caleb feels the velvet of his coat on his arms, the rug under his feet. “So I suppose I will have to help you. I have a rather lengthy meeting with the Assembly tomorrow, but I will find you in the evening, if you wish. I can show you the, ah, the scene of the crime.”

“That would be helpful,” Yasha says.

“It should be, if I’m helping.” Caleb folds his hands in his lap and tries not to fuck up the conversation any further.

There’s a moment of silence, then, as Caleb stares at the Mighty Six and the Mighty Six stare back.

“Well,” Fjord says, “we should be going. Don’t want to inconvenience you too much.”

Caleb blinks at him. “You did come to my door at eleven-thirty at night.”

“Yeah, guess we already did inconvenience you, huh.”

“ _Ja_ , not too much,” Caleb says, and in a way he does mean it.

Molly hauls himself up from the couch. “We appreciate your having us in on such a late night.”

“It’s fuckin’ freezing out there,” Beau says, tugging her long, loose coat closer around herself.

Yasha shrugs. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

The Mighty Six erupt in complaints as Yasha just shakes her head, and Caleb watches as they make their way to the door. He’s about to turn away when he feels more than hears someone approach him, and he looks back in time to see Nott stop in front of him. The hand that peeks out of her cloak, clutching her flask, has a suspiciously green cast. Caleb waits for her to speak.

“I feel like I know you,” Nott says after a moment. In the low light, her pupils glitter with eyeshine. “Do you— do you feel that too?”

And standing there, as he stares down at Nott the most-certainly-secret-goblin, the hair on the back of Caleb’s neck prickles.

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb says. “ _Ja_ , I think I do.”

Nott nods, once, and then she vanishes into the entry hall. After a moment, Caleb follows. The Mighty Six are already out in the street, vanishing in every gust of rain. Caleb stands and watches until they disappear around the corner, and only then does he close the door behind them.

 

Caleb dreams.

Sunset might be his favorite time of day—dusky and soft, as afternoon fills to the brim and flows down into night. The landscape is hazy, but the cart and the people in it are clear. Beauregard sits perched on the rail, shading her eyes as she stares off toward the mountains. Mollymauk, keeping watch on the other side of the cart, shuffles a deck of tarot cards without looking. Jester is humming a walking song— _hey, ho, nobody’s home_ , and Caleb feels the cart swaying to the tune. At the front, Nott is driving, swinging her feet off the seat. Fjord is on the far side, sauntering in time with the cart’s wheels. Nobody is talking much. Caleb can feel himself settling into the rhythm of the cart and the rolling of the hills, the quiet of dusk, the wide grasslands.

Where are they? On the road to Alfield, of course. But there’s something— something—

Caleb’s mind can’t quite grasp it. He lets it go.

There’s a gust of hot air. Mollymauk points down the road. It’s dark enough to see the next flash of fire on the horizon. _Alfield_ , Caleb knows, _Alfield is burning_.

_Burning._

_Blumenthal is burning._

The flames are blazing all around him, an inferno so hot it burns white. White fire, flaring under Caleb’s hands, hot enough to burn. His skin turns to ash as he reaches out, into his home, his mother and his father are there and they’re burning, _they’re burning, my fire—_ _no_ — _wait—_

 _No,_ Caleb thinks firmly, and pulls his hands out of the conflagration that roars up before him. _This is not real. I am dreaming. My name is Archmage Headmaster Caleb Widogast. I dream of my home on fire and people I do not know. I have had these dreams for twenty years and never once have they been real. There is no fire. My parents are alive. I do not know these people._

_No, but I do know them, I must— Nott Beauregard Mollymauk Fjord Yasha Jester— I know them— I saw them—_

_burning—_

_no, wait—_

_who—_

 

The dream collapses like logs in an old fire.

 


	2. A Rumor in Rexxentrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titled after “A Rumor In St. Petersburg” from Anastasia, cause why not.

Fjord wakes up reluctantly.

The Mighty Six were up late last night— left the Headmaster’s, Caleb’s, mansion past midnight, and then they had to walk from the center of Rexxentrum all the way back to the Butterfly’s Rest inn. It rained the entire time.

Fjord had been about to go the fuck to sleep as soon as they got back, but Molly, lingering behind, called his name. “Fjord, a moment?”

Fjord had stopped at the base of the stairs, turned, and there was Molly, already holding a glass of something vile-looking. He’d been about to say _no, absolutely not, I’m going to bed_ when he saw the barely-hidden expression on Molly’s face.

“Fine,” he said, and sat down at the bar. The innkeeper, a Halfling woman called Rosa, gave Fjord a glance that sufficiently conveyed “I’m worried about your friend”. Fjord nodded in the universal gesture of “Me too, and I have an eye on him”. Rosa nodded back and left the bar.

Molly didn’t say anything. He held his drink in one hand and drummed the fingers of the other on the bar counter.

“Molly,” Fjord said, “is there something you wanted to talk about? Cause if not, I’m gonna go to bed.”

“You recognized him too,” Molly said, without meeting Fjord’s eyes.

“Yeah. I did.”

“And everyone else, they recognized him?”

“Yeah.”

“So I’m not the only one who feels like I remember him.”

“No. We talked about this, Molly, we all feel weird about that guy.”

Molly nodded.

“It’s not a Lucien thing,” Fjord said. A guess, but a good one: Molly stilled, and Fjord realized his hand had been shaking, making ripples across the surface of his drink.

“No,” Molly said. “As far as I know, that person wasn’t the type to be friends with an Archmage.”

“Friends?”

Molly looked up, met Fjord’s eyes. “When I met Yasha, it was like that, too.”

When Fjord got up and went to bed, long minutes later, Molly stayed. A glance down from the stairs showed him taking slow drinks from his glass, tail swinging under his seat like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

What with that conversation, Fjord has gotten less sleep than he wanted, and he could sleep a lot longer if not for the banging on his door. “Coming!” he yells.

“Okay!” Jester yells back, and the banging finally stops.

In the other bed, Molly groans and somehow burrows deeper into his blankets.

“Want me to save you some bacon?” Fjord asks.

Molly gives a very eloquent grumble.       

“How late were you up, anyway?”

“Hngh,” Molly says.

“Cause we do have stuff to do.”

One red eye blinks open. Fjord watches, amused, as Molly works up the energy to speak. He finally grits out, “Are you going to keep talking, or will you leave me to sleep?”

“Promise you’ll be down within an hour? Or I’ll have to set Jester on you.”

“Yes,” Molly says, closing his eye again, “now leave.”

So Fjord does.

The girls are downstairs eating breakfast; Nott already ate all the bacon, and when Molly gets down, he only sighs.

“So we gotta start investigating, huh,” Beau says.

“It might be more difficult than that,” Yasha says. “This was twenty years ago and there’s not even a murder weapon.” Fjord suspects Yasha actually does have some ideas, but doesn’t push.

“Ask around,” Molly suggests, rocking his chair back on two legs.

“Do we know where it happened?” Beau asks. “Walking from the Academy to the Cerberus Assembly, right?”

Jester nods. “Right! So we go ask around, figure out where it happened, and see if there are any witnesses.”

Molly rocks his chair back onto all four legs. “The Platinum Way goes all the way across Rexxentrum, and this inn isn’t too far off it. Why don’t we just walk up and see what we see?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Fjord says.

The wind has died a little since last night, but it’s still raining when they leave the Butterfly’s Rest. The Platinum Way is a wide boulevard with a strip of grass and trees down the middle. Rainwater flows through the gutters, running down from the heights at the center of the city. Jester skips through the nearest gutter, spraying the party but being careful not to splash Nott.

It doesn’t take long to walk from the inn to the central districts, but as they go, the Platinum Way gets more and more crowded. Fjord keeps his head up, scanning the buildings around them. Most are squat and square, with carved doorways and small window balconies added on, but as he looks farther he gets a glimpse of a massive domed roof.

“Hey, Yasha,” he says.

She looks over at him.

“Can you see that kinda dome shape up there?”

Yasha peers over the heads of the crowd. She’s a good few inches taller than him. “Yes. I don’t know what it is, but it looks fancy.”

A young woman rushes past, arms stacked full of books. Fjord waves at her. “Excuse me there, could you tell me what that dome is?”

“Soltryce!” she shouts over her shoulder.

“Wait, _that’s_ the Academy?” Fjord calls, but she’s vanished into the crowd. He settles for standing on his toes and trying to get a better look at the Soltryce Academy. The dome seems to shine even in the thin light.

“Hey, Fjord!” Beau yells, and he hurries after the Mighty Six, still staring over the rooftops. As they make their way down the boulevard, the dome begins to come into better view. It sits atop an imposing building with tall, stately columns. The doorframe forms an elegant arch, and the lintel is etched with sharp serif letters that spell out _SOLTRYCE_.

The doors are closed, but the wings that stretch out from either side of the central, domed building are lined with open windows. If he squints, Fjord thinks he can see people through one window, milling around. A blackboard through another. A library, rows and rows of books, through a third. He wishes he could somehow get closer, turn into a bird or a spider and just sneak a look inside. Fjord turns, wanting to ask about it, but there’s no one near him.

When Fjord catches up to the rest of the party, Beau’s saying, “So Trent was killed somewhere between here and the Cerberus Assembly, wherever that is, right? Do we know how far that is?”

“Shouldn’t be too far,” Molly says. “This is just about the middle of Rexxentrum. Not much higher to go.”

“Let’s just keep an eye out for anything interesting, all right?” Fjord says. “Ask anyone who looks like they might know.”

Jester glances around. “Why don’t we just go and ask in that tavern?” She’s pointing to a low building with clean windows. The sign over the door reads “The Star and Hound”, with a wood-burned image of a dog pointing its nose at a stylized star.

“Why not,” Molly says, and they troop into the tavern together.

The Star and Hound is well-lit, with several long tables stretching the length of the room and a handful of people scattered along them. A middle-aged dwarven woman wearing gold spectacles stands behind the bar, and she looks up as the Mighty Six enter. “Welcome to the Star and Hound! My name is Durna Stonecleft. How can I help you?”

“We were hoping we might ask you some questions,” Fjord says, with his most charming smile. “We’re new to Rexxentrum, and we’d like to see some of the sights.”

Durna nods. “Well, you’re at the Soltryce Academy already. The Platinum Way will take you past most of the famous places if you just follow it toward the city center.”

“What about the Cerberus Assembly?”

“They don’t let visitors in the hall, but just to look? It’s about a mile.” Durna points up the street. “Not such a pretty place, but it’s certainly something to see.”

“Are there any stories?” Jester asks. “Ghost stories, maybe?”

“What about murder?” Nott asks from the shadow of her cowl.

“Murder!” Durna says. “Why do you want to know about murder?”

Nott hesitates. “…I like it?”

Fjord prepares to grab Nott and run, but Durna takes it surprisingly well. “Well, if you want to know about murder, I suppose there are crime stories. But you’d have to go to a bookstore to find those. There’s a shop a few blocks that way. The Twisted Scroll, on Appledown Street.”

“We should tell Caleb about that,” Beau says.

“He probably knows about it already,” Yasha points out, “since he works right over there.”

Beau blinks. “That’s right, yeah. Never mind.”

“So no real murders?” Jester asks.

Durna gives her a sideways look. “Do you _want_ a real murder?”

“Oh, no!” Jester says with a smile. “We’re _investigators_.”

“You’re investigating a murder? I don’t know that I’ve heard of any murders around here.”

“This would have been a really long time ago. Twenty years ago.”

“Twenty years! I’ve only been here six years myself,” Durna says.

Jester shrugs. “Well, this was a really famous murder. It was a guy called Trent Ikithon, have you heard of him?”

“Hmm.” Durna taps her chin. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I have heard that name. Why, yes, he was an Archmage, wasn’t he?”

“Well, technically, he wasn’t, technically,” Jester says. “Almost though.”

“And he was murdered! Yes, yes, I do remember. He _exploded_ ,” Durna says, leaning in as though telling secrets. “Very messy, I’m told.”

“We didn’t hear it was messy,” Jester says. “We just heard he turned into light and vanished.”

“Oh, no, it was _very_ messy,” Durna says with a knowing nod. “Blood _everywhere_. My neighbor tells me they found his intestines halfway down the Platinum Way.”

“You didn’t witness the murder yourself?” Nott asks.

“Well, no. But I’ve heard all about it.”

Molly leans across the table. “Would you happen to know where Trent exploded?”

“Not too far from here,” Durna says. “Just a few blocks, right that way.”

“Who do you think might’ve murdered him?” Fjord asks. “Have you heard anything about that?”

Durna purses her lips. “Well now. Someone else on the Cerberus Assembly, perhaps? Those wizards get jealous, I’ve heard.”

Beau downs the rest of her ale. “All right. We’ve heard enough, let’s go.”

Fjord sighs. “Thank you for your time,” he tells Durna. “We have a lot more… investigating to do today, but we sure are grateful for your information.”

“Of course,” Durna says with a smile. “Come back anytime.”

Once they’re walking down the Platinum Way again, Jester says, “That was pretty good! We got some good information out of her.”

“Although she didn’t really know anything,” Molly points out. “About the murder, at least.”

“Unless she was doing it on purpose,” Nott says. “Unless she’s the murderer!”

Jester gasps. “She’s the murderer!” Her eyes grow wide. “Oh, oh, she said it might be another Archmage! Maybe it was Caleb!”

“It’s not Caleb,” Nott says firmly.

“Durna’s not the murderer,” Fjord says, shaking his head, “and neither is Caleb. We still need more information, and she did tell us where to go. We can try to find someone who actually saw it.”

“Is there a burn mark or something?” Jester asks. “Something that shows where Trent exploded? Cause otherwise we’re not going to know where to look.”

“A commemorative plaque,” Molly suggests.

“What, like, someone exploded here?” Beau says.

Jester draws a plaque in the air with her hands. “On this spot in 816, Trent Ikithon exploded.”

“Would they put up a plaque for that?” Yasha asks. “That seems kind of… eh?” Her voice trails off, making it a question, and she waves her hands in the air.

Molly laughs. “Tourists eat that shit up.”

“I like explosions,” Nott agrees cheerfully. “I’d love to see plaques about people exploding. That would be really educational for the public.”

There’s a town crier standing in the next intersection, shouting, “War front held by the Righteous Brand! War front stable for the tenth consecutive week!”

Fjord approaches the town crier, a skinny young man clutching a piece of paper. “Excuse me— uh, excuse me—”

The crier turns, breaking off in the middle of his sentence. “Oh, what, sorry?”

“We’re new in town,” Fjord says, “and we’re looking for a few landmarks round here. Thought you might be able to help us.”

“Uh, sure. What’re you looking for?”

“Well, we were looking for the Cerberus Assembly hall, first of all.”

“That’s that way,” the crier says. He points up the Platinum Way. “Big place, can’t miss it. Right on the plaza.”

“Right. And, uh…” Fjord coughs into his hand. “We heard some stories about some fella exploding? Ikithon was his name, I think?”

“Huh,” the crier says, looking pensive. Fjord is starting to get the feeling that he may be talking out of his ass. “Yeah, that’s fake. One a’ those urban legend things.”

“Right,” Fjord says. “Great. Thank you.” He turns back to the Mighty Six.

“I’m starting to think nobody actually knows what happened,” Nott says, arms folded.

Yasha shrugs. “We can always tell the Lawmaster that we didn’t find anything out. He just disappeared. Case closed.”

Another ten minutes of walking bring the Mighty Six to a wide plaza lined with three massive buildings. One appears to be a judicial court, and the other resembles a palace, which leaves the third— a square-cornered structure, several stories tall, with long windows that stretch from street to roof. People trickle in and out of the court and the palace, but the third building seems to be barred in on itself.

Fjord gives all the buildings a look and figures the closed, austere third building is probably the Cerberus Assembly hall, all things considered. It looks like where he’d figure a convocation of Empire mages would stay.

By Fjord’s guess, they’ve only walked a mile from the Soltryce Academy, which narrows the search area down considerably. Still, no one they’ve met so far has had any real information.

Beau points back toward the Platinum Way. “There’s a tavern back a block. Let’s ask there.

“Still might not find much,” Fjord points out. “So far nobody seems to know anything.”

“We did only ask two people, really,” Jester says. “So only two people don’t know anything. Who knows, the next person we ask might know who did it!”

Fjord finds himself smiling at that. “That’s a fair point, Jester.”

The tavern Beau spotted is called the Brass Tack. This close to the center of Rexxentrum, Fjord would’ve expected something a little more high-end, but the tavern’s location down a side street seems to keep it apart. The low ceiling makes the far corners seem dim and shadowy. It’s not crowded, but several tables are full, as are most of the bar stools.

“Why don’t we split up?” Molly says softly. “Someone to the bar, someone to each table.”

“Pair up,” Beau suggests.

Jester nods. “Nott and I can investigate together.”

“Yasha and Molly, and you and me?” Fjord says, addressing Beau.

Beau holds up her hand for a fist bump, which Fjord returns, and says, “Sure. Bar?”

“We’ll take the card game over there,” Nott says, pointing.

“Don’t cheat them too hard,” Molly says with a grin. “Yasha, dear, back table?”

“You do the talking,” Yasha says.

Fjord and Beau make for the bar. The bartender, a tall elf in a blue jerkin, nods at them and says, “I’ll be over in a minute.”

Fjord nods back. “Take your time.” While the bartender makes their rounds, Fjord scopes out the bar. Only a few people are near enough to hear anything he or Beau would say: a boy and a girl with messenger’s satchels and a woman in a satin vest with a pair of spectacles on a chain. There’s an old man down at the end of the bar, but he’s staring into his tankard and doesn’t look like he’s listening.

The bartender turns back to them. “Hello there. Name’s Huron. Can I get you anything?”

“Ale,” Beau says, pushing over a couple copper pieces. Huron pours her a tankard and looks to Fjord.

“Nothing for me,” Fjord says, “but if you don’t mind, we do have a few questions. New in town.”

Huron chuckles. “Sightseeing?”

“We’re doing some research on the history of the Cerberus Assembly,” Beau says, which is more or less true.

The woman with the spectacles looks over at that. “Research on the Cerberus Assembly? I might be able to help with that.” She sticks out her hand. “Jessamine Gailey. I’m a clerk for the Assembly.”

Beau leans past Fjord to shake Jessamine’s hand, a little awkwardly, Fjord thinks, but she pulls it off. “Ever heard of a guy called Trent Ikithon?”

And there goes caution. Although they’ve literally been commissioned by the Crownsguard, so it’s probably not an issue.

Jessamine peers at Beau. “You mean the Ikithon who died the day he should’ve been raised to the Assembly? Yes, I’ve heard of him. Strangest case I’ve ever seen.”

“What makes you say that?” Fjord asks, keeping his voice light.

“Well, he _vanished_ ,” Jessamine says. “Without a trace! He just disappeared in a burst of light. And the strangest thing, of course— they say his footprints vanished from the snow. As if he’d never been there.”

“Could you tell if he cast a spell?” Fjord asks.

Jessamine makes a so-so gesture. “I couldn’t, not now. But there’s the notes from the investigation. Nobody who looked found anything. Some say he exploded, but there weren’t any burn marks, so it had to be arcane, of course. But the mages who checked didn’t find a spell to make him disappear, or a trace of any of his arcane foci.”

Beau rolls her eyes at Jessamine’s grammatically correct plural. “Did the investigation find anything _useful_? Like who did it?”

“Well, we wouldn’t be talking about this if we knew who did it,” Jessamine says, and Fjord thinks he can see Beau deciding to hate her. “But—” she leans in, supposedly keeping a secret, though Fjord clearly sees Huron and the two messengers down the bar paying close attention— “they found some of Ikithon’s plans after his death. He wanted to train young wizards to kill, make them into weapons, even stronger than warmages. They think that’s why he spent so much time at Soltryce. He was looking for subjects.”

Fjord feels a chill down his back, hearing that.

“Could anyone have known about that?” Beau asks.

Jessamine shakes her head. “It doesn’t look like he shared the plans with anybody.”

“So he didn’t, I don’t know, train someone and get killed by them?”

“No, no, he was just making plans. He never started training anyone.”

“Is there a chance we might see those notes on the investigation?” Fjord asks. “Are they publicly available?”

“Definitely not,” Jessamine says. “They’re in the secure library.” She taps her chin, suddenly thoughtful. “I probably shouldn’t have told you anything, to be honest.”

“Huh,” Beau says, and turns to the messengers. “What do you think?”

They look shocked. Fjord feels a little bad about that. The girl ducks her head, but the boy meets Beau’s eyes. “Pretty suspicious, innit? S’ not every day a whole Archmage blows up, prints an’ all.”

A grin splits across Beau’s face. “Yeah, it sure is, kid. And nobody knows anything— that’s pretty fucking suspicious.”

“Everyone and their grandma knows _something_ ,” Fjord says, frustrated, “just ain’t the same _something_. All we can agree on is Trent Ikithon exploded into light. Up on the Platinum Way, middle of winter—”

“No.”

Fjord jerks upright, startled. The old man at the end of the bar has looked up from his tankard. “No,” he says again, “not like that. Not like that at all.”

“What was it like, then?” Fjord asks.

“He died in the summer,” the old man says. “In a stableyard, sure enough.”

Beau makes eye contact with Fjord. Her gaze says, very clearly, _The fuck?_

The old man continues in a crackling voice that makes Fjord’s throat ache in sympathy. “Yes, he was tricked. And then he died. Deserved it, right enough. In the summer, yes, in the summer.”

“Don’t pay Jenkins any mind,” Huron says, voice low. “He rambles.”

“I remember!” Jenkins says, holding up one finger. “Trent Ikithon! In a stableyard, in the summer.”

Beau throws up her hands. “So all we can agree on is Trent’s dead.”

“Any of you heard anything else about this?” Fjord asks, throwing the question out to the bar in general.

Huron says, flipping a glass in their hand, “I’ve heard about it, but nothing more than Jessamine there.” The messengers both shrug.

“Guess we’ll be off, then,” Fjord says, looking over his shoulder to spot Molly, Yasha, Jester, and Nott. As he watches, Yasha makes eye contact with him, nods, and nudges Molly, in a gesture that suggests _time to go, thank gods_. Jester lays her cards down and sweeps a handful of silver pieces toward herself. Fjord whistles quietly, gets her and Nott’s attention, and waves toward the door. Jester shakes her head, holding up a finger and mouthing _one more_.

By the time Jester and Nott finish their game, the rest of the Mighty Six have gathered in the street outside. “How’d the game go?” Molly asks.

“Pretty good,” Jester says.

“We won all their money,” Nott says, holding up a handful of silver and copper.

“Did you get any information?” Fjord asks.

Jester and Nott look at each other. “Oh!” Jester says. “Right! Yes. Pretty much the same as Caleb said. Trent Ikithon, was gonna be an Archmage, exploded on the Platinum Way in Horisal twenty years ago.”

“One guy said he thought it might be Crick assassins,” Nott says, “but that doesn’t seem likely.”

“Our table didn’t have much new either,” Molly says. “Fjord, Beau, find anything?”

“We talked to a clerk from the Cerberus Assembly,” Fjord says, and relates the main points of Jessamine’s information: the lack of arcane residue, the footprints disappearing, Trent’s plan to make students into killers.

“Caleb probably knows about the spells,” Nott says. “We can ask him.”

“Isn’t he doing… something?” Fjord asks. “All day?”

“He said he’d meet us in the evening,” Nott says.

“We can keep looking around,” Molly says. “We might even be able to find the scene of the crime if we ask in the right places.”

“That’s true,” Fjord says. “We can walk back down the Platinum Way, try some other taverns.”

“We could ask at the Academy or the Assembly,” Yasha suggests. “Since we’re here on official business.”

“We’re the best investigators, you guys,” Jester says, as the Mighty Six start off down the Platinum Way. “We can definitely figure this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huron the bartender is named after the band Lord Huron, whose music got a lot of this fic written. (Strange Trails is a very Caleb album.) 
> 
> Comments are appreciated!
> 
> Next up: Interlude I: Embers (on Saturday, between chapters).


	3. Interlude I: Embers

Nights at this time of year, spring fading into summer, seem to put Caleb on edge. Molly’s noticed that lately. Caleb sleeps less, speaks less. Well, less than usual.

They’re on watch together in the middle of the night. The sky is clear beyond the fluttering tops of the cottonwood trees, and Molly lies in the grass with his head pillowed on his coat, looking for shooting stars.

Caleb is sitting in the curve of a tree’s roots, reading by a single light. He hasn’t made any sound since their watch started, so Molly looks up when he hears the rustle of Caleb setting his book aside.

Caleb stands, turns, walks to the cart, reaches, looks, steps back again. A moonlit pantomime. He’s holding something, a large cube shape, which he sits down with. And he still hasn’t said a word.

Molly rises quietly. When he comes close enough, he drags his feet, scuffing them in the dirt.

Caleb does not look up, but he says, “ _Ja_ , what is it, Mollymauk?” His voice is achingly tired.

“Just wondering if you were awake,” Molly says, speaking as smoothly and warmly as he can. He invites himself closer and sits, the lead box between them.

Caleb lifts the dodecahedron out of the box. The shadows of leaves make it strangely angled, off-kilter despite its solidity. “I am going to look into this,” Caleb says. “I have, ah, a theory. Of sorts. Which I would like to test.”

Molly flops back on one elbow, curling himself comfortably. “I’ll keep watch.”

Caleb nods once, and then he lifts the dodecahedron and stares into it. His eyes go a million miles away, and his breathing slows until Molly can’t make it out at all. It’s creepy, frankly, but Caleb’s expression is… peaceful.

“No,” Caleb mutters. “No, not that. I do not need that. I want to see…” His brow furrows, and he stares at the dodecahedron more closely, as if he can see something deep within it. Molly sits up, ready to slap Caleb awake.

“What are you?” Caleb asks the dodecahedron, or what lurks beyond it. His voice is soft and desperate, and it becomes almost inaudible as he pleads, “I think I am starting to understand…”

And then he drops the dodecahedron. It falls in the grass with a dull thud. Caleb sits bolt upright, his eyes wild. “Mollymauk,” he says, “I know how to do it. I know what I have to do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interludes will be posted on Saturdays, between full chapters on Wednesdays. 
> 
> An important note: these interludes were originally going to be set in canon, but are now set in an AU that has been gently nudged away from episode 26 and the Shady Creek Run storyline. Unless of course that’s fixed, in which case I will correct this note. 
> 
> Next up: The Ripple Effect.


	4. The Ripple Effect

Caleb finds his coat in the cloakroom, checks on his books, makes his farewells to his colleagues, and then he’s out the door and into the fresh, misty air. Astrid and Eodwulf are both sure that being an Archmage is far more trouble than it’s worth, and sometimes Caleb agrees with them. Luckily, today’s conference ended early for a vague emergency that sent half the Assembly to the king’s court. Most emergencies don’t need the Archmage of Cultivation to weigh in, though, so today and most other days, Caleb is left to his books.

He’s two blocks down the Platinum Way before he realizes where he’s walking. Not toward the mansion, but toward the Mighty Six. They might not even be there— but they’d be investigating along the Platinum Way, wouldn’t they?

Caleb hurries on, flicking raindrops off his cuffs. His coat is enchanted to shed water like a duck’s back, but it still tends to drip. He hasn’t figured out a way around that yet without heating it to an uncomfortable degree or else constructing another pocket dimension. His coat already holds several un-spaces for his books, a modified version of an endless knapsack. Eodwulf has accused him of keeping another library in there, which isn’t untrue. Astrid has accused him of making pocket dimensions out of sheer boredom, which is mostly untrue. It’s not Caleb’s fault he has a knack for them. And Astrid talking about doing magic out of boredom is really the pot calling the kettle black.

A trickle of rain sneaks down the back of his neck, and Caleb tugs his collar closed. Maybe he should look into another pocket dimension.

It isn’t far from the Assembly hall to the spot where Trent Ikithon vanished. Caleb marks the location. The Mighty Six are somewhere near, he’s sure, and he finds himself looking for Yasha through the crowd. She’s the tallest out of the Six, and therefore the easiest to spot.

There— just a block down. Caleb hurries toward the Mighty Six, slipping between people with a murmured “ _Entschuldigung_.” Some of them make way, perhaps recognizing his clothes and marks of state.

He’s not quite close enough to call when Jester turns, looking back over her shoulder. She spots him and grins. “Caleb!”

Caleb raises his hand in a wave, catching up to the Mighty Six as they turn at Jester’s shout. “The, ah, the scene of the crime is back that way,” he says, pointing. “I can show you, if you wish.”

“Where did you come from?” Molly asks. There’s no animosity to it, but Caleb feels a little pinned anyway.

“The meeting ended early,” he says. “There was an emergency of some sort. I was not needed, so I thought I would find you, as I promised.”

“We’re glad you did,” Fjord says. “Been looking around, but we haven’t heard much.”

“ _Ja_ , there is not much information on the street, as it were,” Caleb says, starting back up the Platinum Way. The Mighty Six follow, falling into place like the pieces of a blacksmith’s puzzle: Nott beside Caleb, Fjord and Yasha in the rear, Jester and Molly and Beau in front, but close enough to keep pace. “What have you heard?” Caleb asks.

The Six relate the information they’ve gathered. None of it is new to Caleb; the Assembly’s investigators were thorough, and the file is preserved in his memory.

“Jester and I won a _lot_ of money,” Nott adds, holding up a coin purse.

Caleb smiles and ruffles her hair, as well as he can with her hood and cowl. “Did anyone see you?”

“No, I made sure nobody did,” she says, and then they both sort of stare at each other, though Caleb finds himself strangely glad that Nott wasn’t seen.

“Anyway,” he says, “here is the crime scene.” Caleb points down at a cobblestone. “Several eyewitnesses reported that Trent was standing there.”

Nott walks up to the rain-dappled cobblestone and prods at it. The crowd washes around the Mighty Six, parting and flowing past before closing again. Nott looks up. “No traps.”

“Probably wouldn’t be, after twenty years,” Fjord points out.

“Well, there might have been,” Nott says, arms crossed.

“Someone should go ask around,” Beau says, “see if anyone here saw it happen.”

Caleb glances around. “That shop there, the Silver Thimble, it has been in business for many years.” It’s mere feet away, the faded blue awning embroidered with the name in silver.

“I’ll go ask,” Fjord says. “Jess, you wanna come with?”

Jester nods. “Yes, why not. Let’s go.” They make for the Silver Thimble, and the bell over the door jingles as they enter.

“Not terribly much to investigate, is there?” Molly says idly. He crouches to peer at the cobblestone. “No footprints or burn marks.”

“No plaque,” Nott says.

Caleb looks up, and Yasha’s watching him, her vibrant eyes intent. “Do you have a spell you can cast to sense magic?” she asks, in a voice so soft it’s almost swept away in the passing of the crowd.

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb says, “I do, but I am not— it is not my strong suit.”

“Why not?” Nott asks.

“Yeah, why not?” Beau echoes.

This is a subject Caleb doesn’t particularly like to broach, insignificant as it is. “I cannot sense magic,” he says reluctantly, “or arcane residues of any kind. Ah— well, I can, but only when they are very strong, and then I can barely see them. The spell seems to work… poorly for me.”

“But you’re so good at other magic,” Nott says.

“ _Ja_ , true, but not this.” Caleb feels his ears redden. “When Detect Magic is cast, it is supposed to show an aura around enchanted and arcane objects. But when I cast it, I see the same aura everywhere, no matter whether anything is magical. On people, buildings, in the air.”

“Think you could try it?” Beau suggests. “Just look around? You ever tried Detect Magic here yourself?”

“… _Nein_ , no, I have not.”

“Why not?” Molly asks. “Could be fun.”

There’s no good reason why not, except Caleb’s known inability to cast Detect Magic, which he _just_ explained— but, gods damn it, now he’s curious. Now that Beau and Molly have mentioned it. “Curiosity killed the cat,” he says aloud.

“And satisfaction brought it back,” Molly says with a grin.

Caleb smiles in spite of himself. That curiosity has turned itself into a hunch, almost, curled up in the pit of his stomach like Frumpkin being recalcitrant. Detect Magic is not his strong suit, but perhaps he might find… something.

“It will take ten minutes for me to cast it right,” he says. “To make sure I do not fuck it up.”

“Ten minutes?” Beau says. “Jeez.”

Caleb ignores her in favor of sitting down right there on the cobblestones, practically in a puddle, and pulling a book out of his coat. He finds it by touch; it’s the one with the sharper corners and less cracked spine. The dark plum cover is familiar to his hands.

Detect Magic is a third of the way through the book. Caleb finds the page and begins to read, feeling a stirring of arcane energy as he slips into the trance of ritual casting. Bone-deep and burning slow, like the coals of an old fire. The world dissolves around him. Nott peers over his shoulder, he thinks. Beau, Molly, and Yasha stand off a pace or so, marking the spot where Trent Ikithon died, and ever so slowly Caleb’s vision turns to gold.

 

The inside of the Silver Thimble is dim and dusty, exactly how Jester figured an ancient tailor shop would be. The bell over the door jingles as she and Fjord step through, but the shop remains still and silent.

“Think anyone’s here?” Fjord asks quietly.

Jester reaches up and rings the bell, sending a double handful of chimes ringing through the shop. “Maybe no one’s here.” She darts up to the counter, plants her hands on it (narrowly missing a basket of silk ribbons), and leans over as far as she can. “Helloooooo! Is anyone heeeeeeere?”              

“Jester—” Fjord says, and then, “Okay, all right.”

“We’d like to talk to you!” Jester calls, projecting her voice the way the Traveler does when he’s being ominous. “About a murder!”

“A murder?” The man who pops his head through a curtain at the back of the shop looks exactly how Jester figured an ancient tailor would look: wizened, with a long curly beard and crooked, wrinkly hands.

“Yes, a murder,” Jester says in her normal voice.

“We’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind,” Fjord adds.

The tailor steps out of the doorway and places an armful of pretty blue silk on a card table. He reaches up to the shelves above the table and retrieves a piece of chalk, which he taps against his lips as he considers the silk. “I’ve never murdered anyone a day in my life, and I don’t intend to start.”

“That’s good,” Jester says, “because we have a _lot_ of suspects already.”

Fjord nods. “We were hoping you might’ve witnessed it.”

At that, the tailor turns. “Witnessed it?”

“We’re investigating the murder of Trent Ikithon,” Jester says. “He exploded outside your shop.”

“Ah,” the tailor says. “He used to come to my shop, did you know? Right odd, his death, right odd indeed.” He weaves through the mess of sewing accoutrements to stand at the other side of the counter. “I did see him die, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“We’d appreciate any information you have,” Fjord says, suave as usual.

“Hmm,” the tailor says. “Well now. I was standing— pardon me—” He edges around the counter, and Jester follows closely as he walks toward the front of the shop. “I do believe I was standing here with a client.” The tailor pokes at the dummy in the window. “A vest, or it might have been a coat. And something caught my eye out the window.” He points.

Jester looks, but of course there’s nothing there. She can imagine it, though, as the tailor continues. “A burst of fire, and Master Ikithon in the center of it. And then he disappeared.” The tailor snaps his fingers. “Poof— like that.”

“Did he make any sound?” Jester asks.

“Not as I heard,” the tailor says. “He just froze right up. Wasn’t screaming, or moving at all. It was just the fire.”

“How long did he burn for?” Fjord asks.

“Ten seconds? Less. People were starting to notice, call for help. And he wasn’t burning, neither. The fire was all around him, but it didn’t burn him, didn’t melt the snow.” The tailor shivers, eyes distant. “Strange things.”

Jester can picture it: the mage in the middle of the street, frozen in the snow, flames billowing around him. Then gone, without a trace. Thinking of that reminds her— “We heard his footsteps disappeared,” she says. “Out of the snow. Like he’d never even been there.”

“That too,” the tailor says. “Yes.” He turns away from the window. “But it’s been— how long? I might be misremembering.”

It doesn’t look like he wants to say much more. “All right, well, if there’s anything else we want to know we’ll come ask,” Jester says.

“We’ll let you get back to your work,” Fjord adds. “Thank you.”

Before leaving the shop, Jester digs through the basket on the counter for a handful of embroidered silk ribbons, two for a silver. She buys five silver’s worth and puts them carefully in her dress pocket so they won’t get too wet. Depending on who wants how many— Molly will want some for sure, and if she offers right she could give one to everyone; Caleb might let himself be prettied up, but no, he dresses very nice already— well, she’ll definitely have enough to do something with. Hem the hood of her cloak, maybe?

But as much as she tries to think about ribbons, she still keeps circling back to the tailor’s words. Caleb is strong in fire, isn’t he? He wouldn’t burn anyone— or he would— she can’t decide.

Fjord opens the door for her, making Jester smile as she flips her hood up against the gently falling rain. Beau, Molly, and Yasha are standing around, looking a little confused. Nott is peering over Caleb’s shoulder, and the wizard himself is sitting on the ground, hunched over a purple hardback book. “What’s going on?” Jester asks as Fjord steps up beside her.

Beau points. “Caleb’s casting something to let him see magic.”

Jester looks at Caleb more closely. His eyes are strangely unfocused, both reading the dense script in the book and staring beyond it. He’s mumbling something, lips forming words with barely a breath of sound. She’s about to try and poke him when he stops mumbling, sits for a moment, and then starts blinking like he has an eyelash stuck in his eye. He shades his eyes, shuts them for a moment, opens them again. He looks wildly uncomfortable.

“Did it work?” Nott asks. “Can you see things? Auras, or spells, or…”

“ _Ja_ , I can see,” Caleb says with a sigh. “I can see too fucking much.” He cups both hands around his eyes, keeping his gaze on the ground. “There is an aura everywhere, of course. My eyes will adjust in a moment. Ah— Jester and Fjord?”

“We’re both here,” Jester says, since he isn’t actually looking their way.

Caleb nods. “You weren’t here for my explanation. I am a very poor caster of Detect Magic, and I see the same aura everywhere when I try. In the air, on the ground. Not that everything is magical— I simply see it that way.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Jester says, “that the whole world is magical to you.”

Caleb huffs out a laugh, sounding surprised. “But still useless. All right, my eyes are adjusted. Could someone help me up?”

Molly grabs his hand and pulls him to his feet. “Don’t drop the book,” Jester starts to say, knowing how Caleb hates his books getting dirty, but Caleb keeps a firm hold on the tome and puts it safely back in his coat.

Then he looks up, directly at Molly, and he freezes on the spot.

“Caleb?” Nott says after a moment. When Caleb looks down at her, his mouth drops open. “Something is— something is happening,” he gets out, and reaches forward, waving a hand through empty air.

“Are you… looking at something?” Beau asks. “Something we can’t see?”

“ _Ja_ , I am seeing something. There is— there are _ripples_ around you,” Caleb says, gesturing at the Mighty Six. There’s a manic light in his eyes. “In the aura. I have never seen anything like this before, nor read anything about it. But there are ripples around all of you.”

“How can there be ripples?” Fjord asks, staring at the air in front of him as if he could see them if he looks hard enough. Obviously he can’t; he’d have to cast Detect Magic, and Jester’s pretty sure he doesn’t have that spell.

“They are… hmm, they are like places where the aura is thicker or thinner,” Caleb says. “Concentric rings, like a tree stump. Or water dripping.”

“And we all have them?” Molly asks. He’s still standing at Caleb’s shoulder, but doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.

“ _Ja_. And now that I know what I am looking for—” Caleb steps forward, gaze sweeping side to side like a hungry gull. “Ah.” He looks down, at the spot where Trent disappeared, then nearly runs into a passerby.

Beau grabs Caleb’s shoulder to steady him. “Hey!” she yells to the street at large.  “Get outta the way!”

The crowd doesn’t move far, but a pocket forms, enough that Caleb seems satisfied by what he sees and turns back.

“Are there ripples where Trent exploded?” Jester asks.

“ _Ja_ , there are,” Caleb says, “even bigger than those around all of you. They are down the street as far as I can see.” He’s not smiling, but Jester can tell he’s excited, even if he has no idea what the thing he’s excited about is.

“They’re not around anyone else?” Fjord asks. “Not other magic users, maybe?”

Caleb looks out across the crowd. “I do not see any other ripples, and we are near the Academy, so I would be surprised if there were no other magic users here. But it is possible.” He looks around at the Mighty Six. “I— allow me this theory— I do not believe that is the case. You were sent to me to investigate this murder. Maybe you are connected to it, somehow.”

“Let’s get out of the street,” Molly says. “There’s an alley there. Just away from prying ears, all right?” He starts for the alley, expecting everyone else to follow. Everyone always does, so it’s a reasonable assumption.

The alley is well-kept, with boxes and barrels stacked neatly to the sides. The Mighty Six-and-Caleb find places to sit. Jester perches on a barrel, swinging her legs. Beau does the thing she does where she sits with her knees tucked up. It looks uncomfortable, but Jester’s not a monk, so maybe it’s a monk thing. Yasha remains standing, but she almost always does.

“Can you still see the ripples?” Beau asks. “Away from Ikithon’s whole deal?”

“ _Ja_ , there is still time left in the spell,” Caleb says. “And I see the ripples. Around all of you. So I suppose the question is why.”

Jester doesn’t have an answer to that, and she doesn’t think anyone else does either.

“What you said before,” Yasha says, “about being connected. That might be… well, something.”

But Yasha does have an answer, Jester realizes, and it’s a good one. “You must be involved in it too,” Jester says to Caleb, who looks up at her in confusion. “Since we all know you so well and we’ve never even met you.”

“That’s true,” Fjord says. “That’s a good point, Jester.”

Should she tell them? Probably, yes. “You know, the Traveler came to me,” Jester says. “The night when we were trying to decide whether to do this case. He showed up after you guys fell asleep, when I was still drawing, and he said— well, we talked for a little while, but before he left he said—” She puts on the deep, dramatic voice the Traveler uses. “Find the man who killed Trent Ikithon. He played a good trick, but it has gone on long enough.”

There’s a moment of silence in which everyone slowly turns to stare at Jester. She’s told them about the Traveler before, honestly, they should expect this now.

“Wait, you knew the murderer was a man this whole time?” Beau says. “That eliminates, like, half the world.”

“Oh,” Jester says. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I did.”

“ _Find_ ,” Fjord says thoughtfully, with an odd timbre to his voice. He’s hiding something, too, Jester’s sure of it.

Molly reaches suddenly into his coat, producing a deck of tarot cards. “I was fucking around with these, that same night. Did a spread for us. Very simple, just the who, what, why of what to do next.”

The deck vanishes up one sleeve, and three cards remain in his hand. Jester sits up on her barrel and leans forward. She loves this part, the drama of it, the cards revealed like hidden treasure. Molly flips the first card face-up, revealing a glittering seven-pointed star hanging above a silhouetted figure. “Who. The Star.” The second card shows a set of golden scales. “What. Justice.” The final card: an armillary sphere, all overlapping bands, and inside it, a shining globe of light. “Why,” Molly says. “The World.”

He fans the cards, then slips them back into his sleeve. “The World means big things, usually. When I’m doing readings, I try not to pull it. Makes things existential.” Molly looks around at the gathered party. “But according to that spread, there’s something we have to make right. The card for Justice is about balance. And it’s important. It means something.”

“ _Restore_ ,” Fjord says, again with that strange tone in his voice. His eyes are clear, though far away.

“If we are all revealing the things that go bump in our nights,” Caleb says, sounding reluctant, “I have… dreams. I thought they were random, since they always come with the usual sort of nightmares, but now that I have met you all, it occurs to me that I’ve been dreaming about us. Last night I dreamed about riding through the hills and seeing a town on fire. I don’t remember the name—”

“Alfield,” Beau says. “It was Alfield, wasn’t it?”

“ _Ja_ , yes, it was,” Caleb says. “Did you— do you have the same dreams?”

“Nah. Don’t have to. We were there, a couple months ago. Bunch of gnolls set it on fire, we had to kill them all, there was this guy Shakaste who just fucking vanished when we were done. Right?” She turns to the rest of the Mighty Six. “Back me up here.”

“I stole Shakaste’s purse,” Nott volunteers. “And I killed the baby manticore.”

“Yeah, you almost fucking _died_ ,” Beau says, “I had to save your ass.” She turns back to Caleb.  “So you think these dreams are, I dunno, related?”

“To what we are seeking? Perhaps,” Caleb says.

“ _Seek_ ,” Fjord says, as if testing the word in his mouth.

“Yes,” Yasha says, “dreams are…” She gestures vaguely. “Important.”

Molly looks over at her. “Did you…”

“Yes. Yes, I did, I— I was told to set right and reclaim something that had been… broken? But not broken. More like… torn. Like a hole in a scarf.”

“ _Reclaim_ ,” Fjord says to himself, and nods once.

Yasha looks uncomfortable, just talking about this. “So, you know, maybe that’s something.”

Fjord’s sword hand is dripping. It’s almost unnoticeable in the light rain, but Jester is sure. “Fjord,” she says, and nudges him.

He looks up. “Yeah?”

“You were dripping, just now.”

“Dripping what?” Nott says.

“Water,” Jester says. “I mean, it was probably seawater.”

Fjord holds up his hand and looks at it, then licks it gingerly. “Yeah. Salty.”

“Did you dream anything?” Jester asks.

“Uh— no. No, I didn’t,” Fjord says. He looks… uneasy. He’s hard to read at the best of times, though.

“What do we make of this?” Molly asks.

“We make nothing,” Caleb says, “except what is made of us.”

“Fuck you,” Beau says, “I thought I was done with philosophy.” She looks up at Jester. “He’s quoting. Fuck me if I remember the name. Some religious guy.”

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb says, “this all smells of divine intervention. Not of the… ah, the _accepted_ type, but I am not one to hold to what is accepted. I suspect you all are the same.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I do not think we have a choice in whether to investigate this mystery. The higher powers, and perhaps a certain— knowledge— that we shouldn’t have. There is something much, much larger than us here.”

Beau’s face twitches a little at that, and she looks like she wants to start running. Jester scoots forward on her barrel so her leg presses against Beau’s shoulder, and Beau stills at the touch.

“So then what?” Fjord asks. “How do we figure out what’s going on with these ripples?”

A small smile appears on Caleb’s lips, and Jester wants to catch it in a jar like a firefly. “I know someone. Two someones. They are very smart, both of them, and I believe they will at least want to hear this story, because in all the years I have known them they have never let me forget that they are both better at Detect Magic than I am.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tarot interpretations are designed for narrative convenience. Same goes for Detect Magic. Call it artistic license. 
> 
> The phrase “godly intervention” appears in my outline six different times. 
> 
> Tell me what you think in the comments! 
> 
> Next up: Interlude II: Kindling.


	5. Interlude II: Kindling

“All I’m saying,” Fjord says softly, “is we might need a backup plan.”

The late summer sun throws the long shadows of oak trees over the road. Beau shades her eyes with one hand and stands up in her stirrups. She still can’t see it, but they should be there soon.

“I’d say we’re collectively quite a good backup plan,” Molly says.

“Yeah, but this…” Beau can picture Fjord’s expression. He’s driving the cart behind her, with Molly riding alongside and the rest of the group in the cart. “This could go pretty fucking bad pretty fucking fast.”

“And we can’t get out of it quickly,” Molly says. “But I don’t think it’s going to go bad.”

“You don’t?”

“Be honest, Fjord, have we ever seen our wizard care about anything like he cares about this?”

They haven’t. Beau recognizes the look in Caleb’s eyes these days: bittersweet and manic, like stolen wine.

“Guess not,” Fjord says.

“He wouldn’t mislead us,” Molly says, “on purpose, anyway.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Fjord says. “I don’t think he thought this through.”

Beau tugs on Loaf’s reins, slowing the horse so that she rides next to Fjord and Molly. “Yeah, but that’s what we’re here for.” A glance back shows that Jester, Yasha, Caleb, Nott, and Frumpkin are all asleep in the cart, piled somewhat on top of each other. “We watch out for each other, right?”

“Right,” Molly says.

“Fuck you, Molly, don’t interrupt me.” (He smirks.) “Fjord, we did your prison heist, okay? We avenged Jester’s honor in Nicodranas. We went to that fucking swamp for the Gentleman.”

“But we didn’t go to Shady Creek Run,” Fjord says. “We chose not to get in over our heads.”

Beau shakes her head. “Not the point. The _point_ is, now we gotta do Caleb’s dumb plan.”

“So you’re saying we owe him,” Fjord says.

Beau scoffs. “Nah. We don’t owe each other shit. This is just what we gotta do.”

Molly claps quietly at that, but stops after a moment, eyes searching down the road. Beau’s about to ask him, and then she sees it too: a rising wall, and beyond that, the rooftops of Rexxentrum.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Trafalgar Square.


	6. Trafalgar Square

The front hall of the Soltryce Academy is dim and cool, with that smell in the air that Beau sort of hates. Maybe all stuffy scholar places have to smell like that.

Ahead of her, Caleb turns to face the Mighty Six. “Welcome,” he says, “to the Soltryce Academy.” He sketches a bow that treads a fine line between prim and sarcastic.

“This is pretty darn impressive,” Fjord says, staring up at the domed roof of the hall.

“Fjord really, really, really wants to go here,” Jester tells Caleb in a stage whisper.

Fjord blushes deep green. “Now, uh, Jester—”

“You did get a letter from that guy in Alfield,” Beau says. She hooks her thumbs in her sash, settles her weight on one hip.

“I mean, sure, I did, but that’s nothin’,” Fjord says.

“The Academy is much more open nowadays,” Caleb says. “There could be room for you.”

“I’d appreciate that a lot,” Fjord says with a nod. “But we do have a murder to solve first.”

“Yes, Caleb, you haven’t even said who we’re going to see!” Jester says.

Caleb nods. “Come with me.”

There are two wide staircases to either side of the main hall. Caleb leads the Mighty Six up the left staircase and down a corridor. It’s lined with wooden doors, each bearing a brass nameplate stamped with the name of a scholar. Beau eyes them, scanning for names she recognizes. She scowls at a particular one. Fucking Xenoth has an office here. Of course.

Caleb stops at an office most of the way down the hall and knocks. “Astrid, _Schatz?_ ”

There’s a bit of a pause before the door opens. A woman with blond hair braided around her head appears in the doorway, holding a steaming mug of coffee in one hand. “ _Hallo_ ,” she says to Caleb, which is one of about three Zemnian words Beau knows. Caleb says something in Zemnian, and the woman—Astrid— laughs, not unkindly but deeply amused. It’s a good laugh, Beau decides. Caleb says something else, and Astrid stares for a moment, then turns away from the door. Beau can just hear something being poured inside. Astrid reemerges with her coffee mug refilled and addresses Caleb in Zemnian again, one eyebrow raised.

“This is the Mighty Six,” Caleb says in Common. “Fjord, Jester, Mollymauk, Yasha, Beauregard, and Nott.” He turns to the group. “This is Astrid Rosenmund, my wife.” There’s a brief chorus of pleasantries. Beau nods cordially. Astrid does sort of seem like the kind of person Caleb would marry.

“Eodwulf is teaching the mechanics seminar,” Astrid says as the group walks back down the corridor— in Common, presumably for the benefit of the Six. She has the same soft Zemnian accent as Caleb. “In the lecture hall.”

“ _Danke_ ,” Caleb says, and turns down a hallway lined with windows and classroom doors. Beau glances around at the rest of the group and catches Nott’s suspicious glare. She seems to be staring at Astrid. Molly notices as well, nudges Nott, whispers something. Nott blinks and stops glaring, looking a bit confused, though her shoulders stay up around her ears.

Caleb stops in front of a set of double doors. The sheet of paper tacked to them reads _Seminar in Advanced Mechanics: Molecular Conjuration and Metaphysical Implications of Such_. In smaller print below that: _Eodwulf Braunbeck, prof._

Caleb slips inside, leaving the door open. Beau peers in. The room is fan-shaped, with tiered rows of seats. A big, bluff man is standing behind the podium at the front, saying something that Beau catches about two words in ten of— it’s not Zemnian, but it’s disgustingly technical. The diagram on the chalkboard, full of circles with rings and arrows, is no help.

Caleb stands at the back of the room until the lecturer— it must be Eodwulf— turns from writing on the board and sees him. Caleb raises his wrist to his mouth and mutters something, which puts a grin on Eodwulf’s face. By now, the students are starting to turn, and some of them are nudging their friends at the sight of the headmaster (it’s strange to think of Caleb that way) walking in on their lecture.

At the front of the room, Eodwulf raises his hands for silence. “That’s all we have time for today. No homework.”

The class bursts into excited babble as Eodwulf tosses his chalk toward the whiteboard and hurries up the stairs. Beau wishes she’d had him as a teacher. This guy looks like so much more fun than a monk.

Eodwulf reaches Caleb and slings an arm around his shoulders. Shockingly, Caleb doesn’t shrink away. Eodwulf is grinning, and he says, “You finally figured out how to cast Detect Magic!”

“I have always been able to cast it,” Caleb pontificates, “it just never worked. And it still does not.”

Eodwulf looks around at the assembled group. “ _Hallo_ , Astrid. How is the elixir?”

“It worked,” she says. “I have another to complete tonight.”

“Get some sleep eventually,” Eodwulf says, side-hugging her as well. He scans the rest of the group and addresses Caleb. “Who is this?”

“The Mighty Six,” Caleb says, rattling off their names again. He turns to the party. “This is Eodwulf Braunbeck, one of my best friends.”

Another round of greetings. Nott still looks a little suspicious around the edges.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Fjord says, “but we’re just as curious as anyone to find out what we came here for.”

“ _Ja_ , I have not forgotten,” Caleb says. “But Astrid and Eodwulf will be a help in understanding.” He starts off down the corridor. “The theoretical library is in this wing.”

“So what are we looking for?” Molly asks. “Some sort of… oh, I don’t know.”

“Precedent,” Caleb says. “Evidence that this has happened. If someone has seen these ripples before, it will be referenced in the theoretical library.”

“I am happy to help,” Eodwulf says, “but you still haven’t explained what we’re looking for, Caleb.”

“ _Ja_ , very well. I cast Detect Magic as a ritual spell at the spot where Trent Ikithon died—the Mighty Six are investigating— and I saw the same aura as always, but there were ripples in it.”

Eodwulf blinks. “Ripples?”

“Around the Mighty Six and the location of Ikithon’s death.”

“Ripples in the aura.”

“ _Ja_. Like water dripping in a pond.”

Eodwulf stares at Caleb for a moment longer, then shakes his head. “Gods damn if I know.”

“Me too, friend,” Caleb says, and stops in front of a wide set of doors. He turns to the Mighty Six. “This is the theoretical library. There is a silencing spell on it— you will feel it when you go in. The librarian will attune a set of, ah, communicators for us, so that anyone can be heard by the rest.” With that, he opens the door.

The air in the doorway glimmers, like oil spilled on water. It must be the silencing spell, Beau thinks, and sure enough, all sound vanishes as soon as she steps inside. She can hear her own heartbeat, which isn’t unfamiliar given the literal hours the monks made her spend meditating, but it never gets any less _fucking weird_.

The library is huge. It spreads out dozens of aisles to either side, and Beau can barely make out the far wall. There aren’t any windows, probably to keep the books safe from sunlight, but a sourceless glow illuminates every corner. Per the silencing spell, the librarian’s desk is inside its own oil-slick bubble. Caleb is talking to the librarian. As Beau watches, he turns, pointing out the rest of the group. The librarian leans below the desk and retrieves a handful of brass medallions on blue ribbons. Caleb returns and passes them out.

As soon as she puts the ribbon around her neck, Beau can hear again. “Fuck,” she hears herself say, pretty clearly but a little tinny at the edges.

“Oh!” Jester says. “This is _so cool!_ Nott, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can!” Nott says. “You can respond to this message!”

“Can we all hear each other?” Caleb asks, and seems to take everyone’s gaze turning to him as assent. “ _Ja_ , okay, let’s split up, all right? I do not know exactly where we are looking.”

Astrid and Eodwulf fist bump, and then they vanish into the shelves.

“Do any of you know how to get around a library?” Caleb asks the Mighty Six.

“Yeah, probably,” Beau says with a shrug.

Caleb nods. “If the rest of you would come with Beau or myself? I would rather no one got lost.”

“Do you know where they put Dvorak’s treatise?” Eodwulf says suddenly, entirely out of nowhere and as clearly as if he’s right next to them.

The Mighty Six jump— well, Beau certainly doesn’t, and Yasha doesn’t, and neither does Caleb, who just says, “Probably across from the celestial globe.”

“You can do it, Eodwulf!” Jester says, and Beau thinks she hears a surprised chuckle back.

“How should we split up?” Fjord asks. “Guys and girls? Molly with whoever?”

“I’ll go with Caleb,” Nott says, and tacks on a quick “You-can-respond-to-this-message.”

“Guys and Nott, and I’ll go with the girls,” Molly suggests.

“Sure,” Beau says, and walks off in a direction she’s pretty sure Astrid and Eodwulf didn’t go. Molly, Yasha, and Jester follow her.

“What are we looking for?” Yasha asks.

“Anything that looks like it could explain Caleb’s ripples,” Beau says. “And then whatever’s around that. Libraries are sorted so everything kind of relates to what’s next to it.”

“Something about magical residue,” Astrid chimes in. “You should be near that section.”

“What books are in front of you?” Caleb asks.

Beau scans the shelves. “Uh… there’s a blue one called _Theological Origins of the Arcane_?”

“Go two aisles forward and one to the left,” Caleb says.

“I never got used to that,” Eodwulf says. “It’s like you have the whole library memorized.”

“ _Ja_ , well, I do,” Caleb says. They’ve joked about this before, Beau is sure.

She goes two aisles forward and one to the left and then starts looking at titles again. Next to her, Molly runs his fingers over the spines, making a soft _pat-pat-pat_. Jester makes a little “ooh!” sound and tugs a book off the shelf. “ _Observing the Effects of Arcane Energy_ ,” she reads. “Does that sound good, Caleb?”

“ _Ja_ , sure,” Caleb replies. “Look at the ones next to it, too.”

Beau peers at the books. They all sort of talk about the same thing. _Applied Aura Visualization_. _Identifying Arcane Residues_. She starts pulling them down and stacking them against her chest.

“I cannot reach that,” Caleb says with a sigh. “Fjord?”

“I’m not much taller than you,” Fjord says.

“I could climb it,” Nott suggests. “You-can-reply-to-this-message.”

“No, no,” Caleb says, “that’s all right.” Beau catches the sound of Caleb’s fingers snapping, followed instantly by the loudest sneeze she’s ever heard.

“Sorry,” Fjord says, sounding so sheepish Beau almost laughs, “I’m allergic.”

“You have a _magic cat!_ ” Nott shrieks. “I was right! You-can-reply-to-this-message!”

Yasha is standing next to Beau, looking up at the higher shelves, and Beau just sees her tiny smile.

“ _Danke_ , Frumpkin,” Caleb says. “ _Ja_ , I have a magic cat. You can pet him if you want.”

“You didn’t introduce them to your cat yet?” Eodwulf says. “Also, I found the Dvorak.”

“I have a few possibilities,” Astrid says. “Usual spot?”

“Usual spot,” Caleb agrees. He adds, presumably to the Mighty Six, “Go all the way to the back wall and then walk left. You’ll see it.”

“Do we have anything?” Beau asks her group.

Molly just shrugs, but Yasha says, “Maybe this?” She reaches up to the top shelf— Beau can’t even see up there— and takes down a fat book bound in brown cloth. “ _The Encyclopedia of Arcane Detection_.”

“That is a good one,” Astrid says. Beau doesn’t even jump a little this time.

They make their way toward the far wall and then follow it left until the shelves open up into an empty space. Caleb, Nott, Fjord, Astrid, and Eodwulf have seated themselves around a table. It’s already stacked with books, and when Beau and Yasha set down their respective hauls, the table shudders a little.

And there’s a cat.

It’s a little orange tabby, and it’s sitting in Nott’s lap as she pets it. The cat nudges affectionately against Nott’s chest, and the medallion slips over its head for a second, sending a brief burst of purring through the network.

Jester practically vaults the table trying to get to the cat. “Your cat is _so cute_!” she squeals, hugging it tightly.

A smile flits across Caleb’s face. “ _Ja_ , I know.”

“What did you say his name is?” Yasha asks quietly.

“Frumpkin,” Caleb says.

“Frumpkin,” Yasha repeats thoughtfully, and reaches over to give Frumpkin a scritch.

“Here,” Eodwulf says abruptly. He’s standing over the table, reading through a loosely bound book. “Dvorak wrote an entire chapter on things Detect Magic isn’t supposed to do.”

“ _Ja_ , I read that when we were first learning it,” Caleb says, leaning around a stack of books to see.

Eodwulf runs a finger down the page and starts reading aloud. “The caster may experience interference from other arcane sources… amulets, enchantments… any arcane energy centered on the caster.”

“It is not anything I am wearing or casting,” Caleb says. “My coat shouldn’t interfere.”

Astrid’s eyes flutter shut, and when she opens them, there’s a strange light within. Like sunlight underwater, Beau thinks. Caleb’s eyes had looked like that before, but his had glowed with a hot, muffled light like coals in ashes.

Astrid stares at Caleb for a long moment, but eventually shakes her head. “There is a little for each of the pockets, but I don’t see anything else. The spell on the library confuses it.”

“You don’t see any ripples?” Fjord asks.

Astrid peers at him. “No. Is your armor enchanted?”

“Yeah, it is.”

She glances at the rest of the Mighty Six. “I don’t see any ripples.”

“They were there,” Caleb says.

“ _Ja_ , I believe you, I just cannot see them.” Astrid taps her chin. “You should cast it.”

“Detect Magic? Ah— to see if it is still happening? _Ja_ , sure. Give me a moment.” Caleb shuffles his chair back and produces the same plum-colored book he’d had before. Beau gets the sense that the book should definitely not fit in his coat. Astrid had said something about pockets. Magic pockets? That would fit a lot of bacon. Maybe she should ask Caleb about magic bacon pockets.

As Caleb casts the spell, muttering steadily under his breath, the group goes back to reading through their haul, though Molly is fiddling with his tarot deck, and Yasha is wholly consumed with petting Frumpkin. Beau drags out a chair with her foot and takes a book off the stack nearest her.

It’s incomprehensible from the first page, but she knows how to do research. Beau picks a chapter from the table of contents and skims the introduction, then reads through the subheadings. Apparently auras are proportional to the energy of the arcane source. According to a subheading, auras represent potential. The subheading doesn’t say what the aura has potential in. Beau hates research so much.

              

Caleb reaches the end of the ritual casting. His mouth is dry, and his eyes ache with the sheer amount of light he sees.

“Did the spell work?” Nott asks.

“Every time I cast this spell,” Caleb sighs, “I am reminded why I don’t.” He closes his spellbook and puts it back in his coat, then pushes himself out of his chair, leaning on the table. He stares down at the wood grain until his vision adjusts.

The library practically glows with the amount of magic his spell shows. Every shelf, every book, has a thick golden aura, like condensed candlelight. Even the air glitters faintly. It’s strong, probably an effect of the silencing spell laid thickly on the library, but— yes— a glance at the Mighty Six shows that the ripples are still there. Wide, ringing bands, as though the Six were thrown into a pool of water. When Nott fidgets in her seat, the ripples move with her, leaving an momentary afterimage.

“I can see the ripples,” he tells his friends. “All around you.”

“I still don’t see anything,” Astrid muses.

Caleb turns to look at her, meaning to ask, to compare notes. She’s haloed in light, _angelic_ he thinks briefly, the enchantments on her earrings adding their own glow to the glittering library, and in that glow—

The aura ripples around her.

At Caleb’s sudden silence, Eodwulf says, “What happened?” Caleb spins to face him, and sure enough he’s ringed in ripples too.

“You have them too,” Caleb says, breath catching.

“The ripples,” Astrid says.

“ _Ja_ , they are on both of you. The Mighty Six, and my cat, and the two of you, and the spot where Ikithon died.” The list echoes oddly in the medallion link.

“Now, if Caleb here sees ripples around you,” Fjord says to Astrid and Eodwulf, “does that mean you’re part of this too?”

“Logically, it is possible,” Astrid says.

_They_ are _part of this_ , Caleb thinks, and wishes he hadn’t, and wonders why.

“I hope not.” Eodwulf squeezes his eyes shut and then blinks them open again. “I don’t see them.”

“You see an aura over everything?” Astrid asks abruptly.

Caleb nods. “ _Ja_ , I do.”

“And you also see the auras of enchantments and spells?”

“Astrid, what are you saying?”

She’s got the look on her face that says she’s just figured something out, or almost has. “We learned this spell decades ago, Caleb, and I do not believe you would still be mis-casting it now. No. You are seeing something that no one else can see.” Astrid snatches the Dvorak treatise up from the table. “The caster may experience interference from…” She skims. “From any arcane energy centered on the caster.” Slapping the cover shut, Astrid drops the book back on the table. “You are seeing the aura of an enchantment. Something so powerful it obscures everything as far as you can see. It was laid on you, or you cast it— but whatever it is, it is related to this. The murder of Trent Ikithon.”

The library is silent for a long moment.

“This might be a dumb question,” Nott says, “but then wouldn’t you be able to see it too?”

“ _Ja_ ,” Astrid says, “usually I would, but this is perhaps something… else.”

“That seems like a cop-out,” Nott says.

Astrid is unaffected. “It’s a theory for now.”

“What does that mean?” Beau asks. “I mean, what do we have now? We don’t know what Caleb’s seeing, we don’t know who did it. All we know is Trent disappeared in a flash of light—”

“Fire,” Jester says, with such certainty that Caleb turns to look at her in surprise. “The tailor we talked to said it was fire.”

“Yeah, he did,” Fjord agrees. “But the fire didn’t burn anything. Trent just vanished.”

“His footprints, too,” Jester adds. “Like he was _erased_.”

“There is no spell that would have made that happen anyway,” Eodwulf says. “Now that I’m thinking about it. Vanishing in a flash of light?” He’s right, Caleb realizes; it’s storybook magic. Nothing he has ever actually read of.

“We don’t know who did it,” Beau says.

“We haven’t really come across much of a motive,” Fjord adds.

Eodwulf says, “I think you need to know who could have done it. Who could have cast a spell like this? This type of material manipulation is very powerful magic.”

“Something unknown,” Astrid agrees. “Whoever killed Trent Ikithon discovered something new.”

“But we don’t know what that is,” Jester points out.

“We are going in circles,” Caleb says, frustrated. It’s a murder, only that, of one single person. Why can’t they solve it? What is keeping them back?

Molly sighs. “Well, we can keep asking around. Maybe someone knows something.”

“That might be our best plan,” Caleb agrees. “Tomorrow.” It’s getting late; the sun is almost below the horizon. “I will meet you at your inn. Where is it?”

“The Butterfly’s Rest,” Fjord says, “pretty far outside this neighborhood, but it’s close to the Platinum Way.”

Caleb nods. “Tomorrow morning, then.” He’s not hopeful, but the Mighty Six have worked miracles before.

They stack the books on a nearby cart— not enchanted, because librarians are prickly about their sorting, which Caleb fully understands. Eodwulf leaves to hold office hours, and the Mighty Six assure Caleb that they can find their way out, so Caleb accompanies Astrid back to her office.

Out of nowhere, she says in Zemnian, “You like them.”

“I do,” Caleb replies in the same language. “They are a bunch of charming assholes.”

“Yes, they are.” Astrid laughs, taking a swig from her stein. She adds, “It’s strange seeing you around them. And it isn’t.”

Caleb blinks. “What?”

“I’ve never met them, and you’ve never met them, so seeing you stand with them is unfamiliar,” she says, slowly, as though she’s feeling out the words. “But you look so natural next to them. Even the goblin.”

“I don’t think we are supposed to know she is a goblin.”

“You didn’t even think of turning her in, did you?”

“No,” Caleb says, “of course not.” He’s almost surprised by how certain his voice is. Almost, but not quite.

“Listen to you,” Astrid says. “You really care about them, Caleb, _Liebling_.”

“Ah— well, maybe,” he says, testing out the sensation of it— of caring for the Mighty Six. It settles, somewhere deep inside him. Nott, Beauregard, Mollymauk, Fjord, Yasha, Jester. Caleb.

              

The Mighty Six troop into the Butterfly’s Rest and order a round. Molly is glad to sit. He’s used to long hours, but his feet hurt, and he doesn’t like being wet all day. Rosa, the innkeeper, brings the tankards to their table. “You’ll have to come up to the bar for the rest,” she warns. “There’ll be some weather tonight, and everyone will be in before then.”

“Is it going to storm?” Fjord asks.

“A good one,” Rosa says, grinning. “The storms here are the best in Wildemount. You’ll want to stay inside tomorrow.” She goes back to the bar.

Molly claims a tankard and takes a long drink. “Well, that pretty much fucks our plan.”

“Maybe it won’t be that bad,” Jester suggests. “She could be exaggerating.”

“What were we gonna find, anyway?” Beau groans. “We don’t know jack shit about anything.” Molly’s inclined to agree.

“I know lots of things,” Nott says.

Beau eyes her. “About the case, Nott?”

“Oh. Right,” Nott says, nodding. “In that case, I don’t know anything either.”

“We can still keep looking,” Fjord says, but it sounds like he’s grasping at straws, and the table lapses into silence. Molly looks into his tankard, takes another drink. Beside him, Jester’s fidgeting, tail thumping against the table leg. Can’t be long before she speaks up, Molly figures.

Sure enough, a moment later, Jester says, “What if Caleb really did do it? I mean, I was sort of joking about it before, but he’s good at fire, and Trent was killed by fire. And the aura, and the ripples…” She trails off.

“Caleb wouldn’t murder anyone,” Nott says, but she sounds unsure.

Fjord shakes his head. “Naw, no way. Couldn’t be. He would’ve been a kid when it happened.”

“Kids can definitely do murders, Fjord,” Jester says. “Kiri was very little and she tried to kill a lot of things.”

“That’s true,” Fjord says. He looks uncomfortable. And Molly can’t decide how he feels about this. On the one hand, it makes a certain kind of sense. On the other, it makes absolutely no sense at all. His tail snaps back and forth.

“I still think there’s something we’re missing,” Yasha says. “There is something we’re not seeing.”

“This is so fucking frustrating,” Beau bites out, shoulders stiff.

“I think,” Molly says, “we should just ask him.”

“Caleb?” Jester asks.

Molly nods firmly. “Zone of Truth if you want. Now, I don’t _think_ Caleb murdered anyone, but I think we deserve to know if he kept anything from us. We’re mixed up in this too.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Fjord muses.

“He’s Empire,” Beau says. “Shouldn’t trust him. But we do.”

“I trust him,” Nott says.

Jester nods. “Well, so do I, but I think that’s the problem.”

Outside, the wind begins to pick up, and Molly can just hear the first drops of rain on the roof. _There’s a storm coming_ , he thinks, and isn’t sure why.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Astrid and Eodwulf are both named after German scientists (a chemist and a physicist). 
> 
> A good bit of this fic was written to the New World Symphony by Antonin Dvorak (specifically the second movement), hence Dvorak the Detect Magic treatise writer. 
> 
> The title of this chapter is taken from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s book Good Omens (if you’re reading this you’d probably love it), which was the inspiration for Caleb’s Detect Magic issues. In Good Omens, the reason a character can’t see an aura is described as the same reason you can’t see England from Trafalgar Square. Caleb, of course, is in Trafalgar Square. 
> 
> Comments keep me writing! 
> 
> Next up: Interlude III: Spark.


	7. Interlude III: Spark

The afternoon is thick with heat. Yasha hates it— the weight, the stillness, the blazing sun. She misses the taste of freezing air and the silence of deep snow.

But they could not enact this plan anywhere else.

Straw crunches under Nott’s feet as she darts across the stableyard. “You can see the street from those boxes up there,” she says. Yasha looks. The boxes, wooden-sided and stuck with nails, are stacked higher than her head. Nott could certainly hide there.

Fjord nods. “I could see the boxes from the street, and everything closer than that. So we have the stables and most of the yard.”

It isn’t a very big stableyard. But it’s out of sight from the street, and their cart and horses fill the yard enough to guarantee them some privacy.

Caleb is pacing again, back and forth, back and forth. Despite the heat, he’s been wearing his hood up since they came close to Rexxentrum. Every footstep makes a rustle in the bone-dry straw. Caleb’s hands flex and twist, knuckles twitching in the beginnings of arcane sigils. Yasha recognizes that. She places her hand on the symbol that hangs from her belt, traces the raised edges.

Molly saunters up and bumps his hip against hers. “How’re you doing?”

Yasha takes a moment to consider. “All right.”

Molly nods, pats her shoulder, and wanders off again. He understands. Yasha is thankful for that.

Beau and Jester return with an escape route secured and bribes paid. Beau seems easier in this heat. Her footsteps are light, but the straw still crackles under her feet. It’s so dry, and the sun is still in the sky, though it’s dropping fast. Faster than Yasha expected. She tries not to imagine it as a headsman’s axe.

The heat makes time move fast. It must. Otherwise there’s no explanation for how soon Fjord ducks back around the corner of the inn, saying, “Twenty seconds!”

Caleb nods. “ _Ja_ , good. Jester, Nott, if you would?”

Jester mutters a prayer to the Traveler. In an instant, her duplicate appears before them, then darts out into the street. Nott scrambles up the stacked boxes and lights the long fuse she’d laid so carefully over the rooftop. Caleb had been adamant that they’d need a distraction, but the rest of the Nein had been equally adamant that they wouldn’t leave him alone.

They move quickly, carefully, into formation. Nott on the roof, Jester and Fjord and Beau and Molly and Yasha making a perimeter, and Caleb in the middle, standing forward, shoulders pinned back. Yasha thinks she’d recognize the look in his eyes, too, if he was facing her— cold and fiery at the same time.

Caleb’s hands stay at his sides. Jester’s lollipop appears, and Beau grips her staff, and Molly lifts his scimitars, and Fjord’s falchion appears with a frisson of energy.

Footsteps approach from the street, stately and steady. In the dry air, a single spark would set this whole stableyard ablaze. Yasha unsheathes her greatsword and fears for someone else.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The Butterfly’s Rest.


	8. The Butterfly's Rest

Caleb dreams.

It’s a crisp autumn morning, sunny and clear, which makes him desperately sad in a way he can’t shake. But that’s the familiar kind of sadness anyway, and there’s a festival outside the door. He’s in Zadash, and he’s playing King’s Vault with Nott, and he wins a silver coin and she loses it. It’s so _easy_ to be here, there, in this morning that tastes like home.

Yasha knocks the block over, and so does Jester, and they win fifty gold pieces between them, and Molly buys a hideous tapestry and wears it like a cape, and Caleb loses badly at the archery game, and Nott wins it, and she gives her swords to Beau and a rat to Yasha, and Fjord is brushing sand out of his armor and Jester and Yasha and Molly are all laughing, Beau and Nott are laughing, and Caleb is desperately happy in a way he shakes off as soon as he realizes because none of it is real.  

Caleb jolts awake at a crack of thunder. Rain is battering the windows, and the mansion creaks with it. His pillow is soaked with tears, and he isn’t quite sure why. The yawning pit in his chest is just as unfamiliar, but it fades as he gets up and prepares for the day.

Astrid’s side of the bed is cold, but when Caleb opens the door to go downstairs, he meets her coming in. “ _Hallo, Liebling_ ,” she says.

“ _Hallo_ , _Schatz_. Have you finished?”

“Yes.” She steps in to him, drops her head on his shoulder.

Caleb runs his fingers through the hair coming loose from her braid. “Are you going to bed?”

“Also yes.” Astrid nudges past him. Caleb shuts the door as quietly as possible, knowing his wife is probably already asleep. Hopefully she remembered to put a stasis field on the elixir.

It’s still storming when Caleb steps out into the street, and he tugs his coat closer around himself. A smile spreads across his face. It’s been a long time since they had a proper storm.

By the time Caleb gets to the Butterfly’s Rest, his feet are squishing in his boots. He opens the door just enough to get in and shuts it quickly. Inside, the inn is warm, lit by two hearth fires. Some of the tables are occupied, but the inn isn’t crowded. The storm has kept people in their homes.

The Mighty Six are tucked into a back corner booth, all seated around a big wooden table. Nott looks up and waves as he approaches, and Caleb squeezes in next to her. “ _Hallo_ ,” he says, “it isn’t really looking like we can go out.”

“Well, we had some other ideas,” Fjord says.

“Oh, _ja_?” Caleb says, and a wave of arcane energy washes over him. He doesn’t even have to concentrate to shrug it off; the bracelet on his wrist grows hot, and the spell fades.

“Did you kill Trent Ikithon?” Jester shouts, leaning across the table to stare directly into his face.

“ _Nein_ , I did not— what did you just cast?”

“Jester,” Beau says, “we said we’d ease into it.”

Caleb takes a moment to make a very stupid decision and then tugs the bracelet off his wrist. It’s a thin strip of hammered bronze with runes etched on the inside, and it has saved Caleb’s life several times in the past years. He places it on the table in front of him. “That was a Zone of Truth? Cast it again. I will not resist.”

“Oh,” Jester says. “All right.” Another wave of energy breaks over Caleb, and he lets it sink into him, feeling the spell catch tight like a rabbit trap. “Did you kill Trent Ikithon?”

“ _Nein_ ,” Caleb says, and then adds, to be clear, “No. I did not kill Trent Ikithon.”

With that, a weight seems to lift off those around the table. Molly nods. Beau’s shoulders relax a little. Nott says, “See? I told you! I told you he didn’t kill anyone! I’m the best detective!”

“ _Ja_ , you are a very good detective,” Caleb says. “Why did you need to cast that?”

“Well, you know, it’s kind of suspicious,” Jester says, “how he died in a fire, and you’re good at fire, and all that.”

“I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even in Rexxentrum then.”

“That’s what I said,” Fjord says.

Caleb nods. “Yes. So we still must consider who did it. I do not think we can go out—” Everyone looks to the windows of the inn, which are shaking in their frames. “ _Ja,_ so, we can still talk it over.”

“That’s a fair point,” Fjord says.

Beau groans. “We’ve been over this already. We haven’t learned anything new.” She ticks it off on her fingers. “Trent Ikithon, almost an Archmage, burst into flame, totally disappeared, even his footprints. No sign of anybody casting a spell on him. There’s a spell on Caleb and it shows ripples around us, him, his friends, and the scene of the crime.”

Silence falls over the table. Rain hammers the windows. Yasha looks up from her mug of ale, staring through the ceiling like she can see the storm overhead. Maybe she can; Caleb wouldn’t be surprised.

He crosses his arms. “So we have many small details, and no explanation.”

“It’s been twenty years,” Molly says. “Maybe there isn’t an explanation to find.”

Fjord shakes his head. “Gotta be something. I mean, the guy, Ikithon, he’s dead. There’s gotta be an answer somewhere.”

“ _Trent_ Ikithon?” The voice comes from behind them. Caleb whips around to see the innkeeper standing there. Rosa Djawadi, he recalls, a Halfling with short, curly hair and a burlap apron tied around her waist. She’s staring at them, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Fjord says, “Trent Ikithon. Why?”

“Do you know something?” Jester asks. “Cause we’re trying to figure out who killed him.”

Rosa nods rapidly. “I saw him die.”           

She’s in the Zone of Truth, Caleb realizes. The spell covers a circle thirty feet across, and Rosa is not three feet from Caleb’s seat. So she can’t possibly be lying.

“You saw him?” Beau asks. “What did you see?”

“He was out in the stableyard,” Rosa says, pointing. “Out back that way.” Caleb follows her finger, but the windows are covered with torrents of rain. “I was playing in one of the rooms— my family has owned this inn for years, and I was small— and I saw him come into the stableyard. There were people there, a big group, and one of them lit him on fire. And then they all disappeared.”

“They disappeared,” Beau says flatly.

“Yes,” Rosa says. “All of them, they just vanished.”

“Do you remember anything else?” Caleb asks. Her description is awfully clear considering how young she was when she saw it.

Rosa’s brow furrows. “It was awfully long ago. There were seven of them, I think.”

“Did you see anything else?” Nott asks. “Did you hear anything?”

“No,” Rosa says, shaking her head. “I was inside, so I couldn’t hear.”

“When did this happen?” Fjord asks.

“In the winter,” Rosa says. “It was Horisal. In the morning.” At the exact time Trent died. Caleb would stake his life on it.

“Anything else?” Beau asks. “Could you recognize the people you saw?”

Rosa frowns. “No, they were facing away from me.” Her face brightens. “I could show you where it happened, if you like?”

“That’d be right helpful,” Fjord says.

“Well, come with me,” Rosa says, and starts off toward the back of the inn. Caleb and the Mighty Six pile out of the booth (Jester slides under the table) and follow.

At the back door, Rosa takes a waxed canvas coat from a peg and puts it on, raising the hood. Rain blows in as soon as she opens the door, and everyone squeezes through it at once to let Rosa shut it behind them.

Caleb takes a moment to get his bearings. They’re in the stables, it seems. A tarp-covered cart makes a hulking shape in the corner of the stableyard. Otherwise, the yard is empty. Puddles are starting to form in the dirt.

“Point to us where they were, if you would,” Caleb tells Rosa.

She nods and walks up to the farthest dry spot, just under the roof of the stable. “There were five people there, in a semicircle. And one up on the roof, and one in the middle of the yard.” She points to the gate on the far side, which closes off the stableyard from an alley. “Ikithon came through there. He stopped facing the one in the middle. I think they were talking to each other, and then the one in the middle cast the spell, and Ikithon started burning.” It’s hard to visualize with the storm filling the stableyard, but Caleb thinks he can almost see it. The fighters in position, Ikithon walking into their midst…

“Caleb,” Beau says abruptly, “you should cast that spell again.”

Caleb turns to look at her. She’s staring out into the stableyard, arms crossed. “Detect Magic?”

“Yeah. See if you see… anything.”

“Yes,” Molly agrees, “if she saw what she says she saw, there’ll be ripples.”

Caleb sighs. “ _Ja_ , sure.” He sits on the tail of his coat, opens his spellbook on his knees, and begins to read.

Ten minutes later, he comes back to himself. It’s familiar by now, the ripples around his friends, the golden aura hanging in the air.

“Any minute now,” Beau’s saying, “he’ll get all squinty—”

“Look!” Jester says. “He’s done!”

“I do not get squinty,” Caleb says, and puts his book away while his eyes adjust. He gets up with a hand from Nott and glances around at the Mighty Six. The ripples are all there, just as before. No ripples around Rosa, thankfully. He isn’t sure what he’d do if Rosa had them too. Maybe just sit back down on the ground and give up.

“So, Mister Caleb,” Molly says, “what do you see?”

Caleb turns to look out at the stableyard. It’s full of ripples, all overlapping, like the rain falling in the puddles on the ground. And in the midst of the ripples, there’s— _something_.

He picks his way through the mud to it. A spot, just a spot, where there’s no aura at all, and then a long trail forward from that, and finally a massive burst. Caleb waves his hands through it, but sure enough there’s no aura there at all.

“Caleb?” Nott says. Caleb looks down at her. She’s crossed the stableyard to stand beside him, and she looks back at him with big yellow eyes. A sharper gold than that of the aura, as solid as a handful of coins.

“There is something here,” Caleb says. “Or, ah, there is some nothing here.”

“Where?”

Caleb traces the edges of the space. “Here.”

“That’s the spot!” Rosa calls, and Caleb and Nott both turn to look at her. “That’s where Ikithon was!”

“Here?” Caleb calls back, pointing at the empty spot.

“Yes!”

Caleb hurries back across the stableyard to stand at the first burst of nothingness. It’s at chest height for him, right where his hand would be if he stretched it out palm first. The nothingness streams forward, a long straight line toward the burst.

The rain is pouring down so hard and fast Caleb can barely see, but he aligns himself with the empty space and starts walking. Forward, forward, forward. Three steps, and then the nothingness makes a loop to the side— his hand darts out, spraying water, then continues tracking inexorably forward. Another step. Another flick of his wrist, and back to the path. It reminds him of sparring with Astrid and Eodwulf at the dueling club, blocking their spells with his own. Four more steps forward, and he stumbles to a stop, his hand extended in the empty space Trent Ikithon left behind.

Lightning cracks across the sky like a mirror breaking. Caleb’s hand shakes. Rain trickles down his back.

He understands, suddenly, and irrevocably.

Caleb lets his hand fall to his side. He turns from the non-aura and goes to stand under the roof with the Mighty Six. Thunder roars, and the sound is like mountains falling. They’re staring at him. It’s Jester who speaks first. “Caleb?” she asks. “What happened?”

It takes Caleb a long moment to order his thoughts. “There is an empty space there. In the aura, between the ripples. You saw me walk along it. There is a burst at the beginning, a trail, and then there is a larger gap at the place where Trent died.”

“Are you saying he died here?” Beau asks.

“ _Ja._ I am.”

“Didn’t he die on the Platinum Way?” Fjord asks.

“ _Ja_ , also there, but I think— I think it must be here as well.”

Nott crosses her arms. “So he died in two places at once?”

Caleb nods.

“Let’s take this inside,” Molly says in the ensuing silence. “This’ll take at least two rounds to sort out.” His voice is jovial, but Caleb, glancing at him, sees something like stiffness in his hands.

Rosa opens the door, and they hurry back inside. She says something, and Molly passes her a coin— a drink order, perhaps. Caleb turns it over and over in his head, the blast mark in the aura, the path to it, which fits his hand exactly. The aura, and the ripples. The fire. There is no other explanation, he decides, with a cliffs-edge certainty.

“Jester,” Caleb says, once they’re seated, “would you mind casting Zone of Truth again? It will be the last time, I promise.” He looks around at the Mighty Six. “I want you to know that what I am about to say is true.”

“All right,” Jester says, “but this is the last one I can cast today, okay?” She concentrates for a moment, and the wave of magic sweeps over the table again. Caleb lets it settle over his shoulders.

“Thank you,” he says, keeping his gaze on the table in front of him. “First, Jester, if you would explain how Zone of Truth works.”

Caleb isn’t watching, but he thinks Jester is probably giving him an odd look. “Well, okay, so, Zone of Truth makes everyone in it tell the truth, no matter what.”

“You cannot tell a purposeful lie,” Caleb agrees. “So you know that I am telling the truth to the best of my knowledge.”

“Did you fuckin’ lie to us?” Beau asks. There’s a dangerous sound in her voice.

“I did not mean to,” Caleb says. “But… yes, I did. By accident. I wish to correct it.” He forces himself to look up. The Mighty Six are all staring at him. There’s a peculiar smile on Molly’s lips, a crease in Nott’s brow.

Caleb takes a deep breath and begins. “Trent Ikithon died in Horisal in 816. By most accounts, he was on the Platinum Way when he was surrounded by light and then vanished. According to the tailor Jester and Fjord spoke to, it was fire that consumed him. Nobody around him cast a spell. No evidence was found.” True. All true. Caleb continues, “However, by Rosa Djawadi’s account, Trent was killed by a group of unknown people in the stableyard of this inn at the same time that he was seen to die on the Platinum Way.”

“So where’d he die?” Beau asks.

“In both places,” Caleb says, “at once. What Rosa saw was an illusion, an echo of another time as something very big was changed.”

“If we ignore the obvious impossibility of that,” Molly says, and he’s not smiling, “what happened, Caleb? Who killed Trent Ikithon?”

“I will come to that,” Caleb says. He doesn’t want to say it yet, because it will define everything that comes after. “First, what happened. That, I think I know, but I cannot be sure.” Caleb sighs. “Trent Ikithon was killed in the stableyard, yes, but not on the morning of the twenty-third of Horisal in 816. He was killed there at some other time. There are studies— there are scholars of these things. They study how magic may transform reality itself. No one has done it yet. But we are almost certain that it is possible.”

Silence hangs over the table.

“So you’re saying,” Nott says, “you’re saying, somebody went back in time and killed him in the past?”

“That is possible. But I believe he may have been killed from the future.”

“How,” Beau says, “the _fuck_ would someone do that?”

Caleb holds her gaze. “Imagine if Trent had been alive.”

“He would’ve been an Archmage,” she says.

“ _Ja_. He would have been powerful. He could have done any number of things that would make someone want to kill him— that would make someone desperate enough to do something risky. Something dangerous.”

It’s Fjord who realizes it, who gives Caleb the last piece of the puzzle. He’d been bluffing so far, leaving the question of _why_ open, but Fjord says abruptly, “The kids. He was going to— he had plans— he was going to train kids to fight. Someone must’ve found out about that.”

Jester’s eyes grow wide. “Maybe one of the kids grew up and killed him! In the future! And they made it so he never did anything at all!”

“He was _assassinated_ ,” Nott says, and Jester high-fives her.

“I think that is a possibility,” Caleb says. “But we can never know, because we are living in the world where he was killed.”

Rosa approaches with a tray of drinks, which she sets in the middle of the table. Molly winks at her and flicks another gold coin across the table. Nott’s eyes follow it, but she doesn’t reach out, and Caleb feels a spark of pride at that. He takes his tankard and drinks from it, hardly tasting whatever Molly ordered.

When Rosa is out of earshot again, Fjord says, “So, Caleb, that’s an idea on the how of it, and some of why. Who did it?”

Caleb sets his tankard down. “ _Ja_ , very well.” Gods, but he does not want to do this. “There are several clues to that. First, the magic. If Trent was in fact killed by magic so powerful he vanished from reality, it must have been an incredibly, ah, mighty spellcaster. This was no ordinary crime.”

“It was a man,” Jester adds. “The Traveler told me to find a man.”

“True,” Caleb says, “yes, that as well,” though it leaves a sick feeling in his stomach. Another nail in the coffin. He forges ahead.

“What Rosa showed us, too, is important. She saw seven people in the stableyard. So we are looking for seven, or one of seven. And then there is the godly, otherworldly, intervention we all have received. Jester’s visit from the Traveler, Molly’s cards, my dreams, and Yasha felt something as well, I think? I do not know if the rest of you are connected to gods or powers—”

“Ioun hasn’t said shit,” Beau says with a shrug.

Caleb laughs a little at that. “All of that, then, suggests that we are meant to be searching. We, specifically, are the ones who are meant to investigate this mystery. As it is.”

Looking around the table, he thinks Yasha’s gotten it. Her arms are crossed, and she sits silently, watching him with a steady gaze. Molly as well, maybe, and he can see Beau is putting it together— her gaze darts around the table, counting.

“Then, the aura,” Caleb says. “And the ripples. The aura is centered on me, and it is, ah, affected by all of you, as it is by the places where Trent died. Therefore we are connected to this somehow. The gods sent the seven of us to search knowing what we would find.”

“Wait,” Nott says. “You think we did it?”

“Not quite.” Caleb shakes his head. “There is one more thing. The fire.”

Jester gasps. “Trent was killed by fire!”

Caleb nods. “ _Ja_. He was. Imagine a fire that burns through time and reality itself. I can almost see how it would be done. A transmutation spell, with fire as a conduit. You all know that I am, ah, strong in fire.”

“Caleb,” Beau says, and the dangerous edge has left her voice.

“Which of us could cast that spell?” Caleb asks. “I do not think any of you could.”

“You could,” Nott replies, and then seems to realize what she’s said.

“ _Ja_ , I could, and I believe I did. In another time, another world. It would change everything. My spell altered reality itself. That is— must be— what made the aura.” The Mighty Six are staring at him, and Caleb cannot read their expressions. He says, quietly but very sure, “I killed Trent Ikithon.”

It comes out of his mouth, heedless of the Zone of Truth. _I killed Trent Ikithon_. It’s almost a relief to say it, Caleb thinks.

“You killed him!” Nott says, pointing at him.

“I guessed it!” Jester says. “I said— I was thinking— you did it!”

“Shh, guys,” Beau says, “a little quieter, we were there too.”

“So that was how you knew our drink orders,” Molly says. There’s relief in his voice.

Caleb has to think about that for a moment. It seems like so long ago that they were all sitting in his parlor on a dark and stormy night.

“We knew each other,” Fjord says. “Used to know? Have known?”

Caleb nods. “ _Ja_ , in another time, when Trent became an Archmage, we knew each other, and we killed him. And now we do not know each other, but we are supposed to. It feels as though we do.”

“And I found you!” Jester says. “Like the Traveler said!”

Caleb finds himself smiling. “Just like the Traveler said.”

Yasha looks at him, finally, and Caleb makes eye contact with her. She says, “It’s good to see you again, for the first time. Either way.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Caleb says.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Step on a butterfly, and the whole world changes. Murder an Archmage, and… well, actually less than “A Sound of Thunder”, but a lot changes from the right perspective. 
> 
> Rosa Djawadi the innkeeper is named for Ramin Djawadi, who wrote “Light of the Seven” on the Game of Thrones soundtrack. It’s a good song for chapters like this one, especially the scene in the stableyard. 
> 
> Comments are appreciated! 
> 
> Next up: Interlude IV: Flame. (We’re not done yet.)


	9. Interlude IV: Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Anyone can make lights. Anyone can send a message through a wire. I want to bend reality to my will…” —Caleb Widogast, episode 18 (Whispers of War).

Trent Ikithon enters the stableyard. Nott hates him with a hatred as sharp as a crossbow bolt and as piercing as its strike.

But Caleb told her to leave this death to him.

Trent Ikithon enters the stableyard. He’s looking for Yasha, like he was told, and he sees her, but first he sees the man standing before him.

“Ah,” Trent says. “Caleb.” In his mouth the soft _b_ becomes hard. “How long has it been?”

“Seventeen years, three months, four days, and nineteen hours,” Caleb says, and he must be scared to count it out like that. Or maybe he’s just carried it with him, waiting for this moment.

Caleb raises his hand, flat in front of him, palm up. “I have learned since then.”

“You were always so bright,” Trent says.

“Would you like to see?” Caleb asks, and in his hand there is a flame. It burns white, and barely flickers, but the air around it ripples with heat-glow.

Trent inclines his head. “I didn’t teach you that.” His hands are folded.

“No,” Caleb says. He’s staring into the flame in his hand, eyes fixed on the bone-white glow. “This I learned on my own. Do you know why?”

“Why?”

“To watch you burn,” Caleb says, and turns his hand so his palm faces out, toward Trent, and Nott imagines she can see the fire reflected in _that bastard_ ’s eyes. _Good_ , she thinks. _Let him be afraid_.

But he doesn’t look afraid.

The flame bursts from Caleb’s hand, boring through the air. The stream of fire hits Trent square in the chest, and the world _flickers_ , somehow— the sky twitches at the edges and the air rearranges itself and Trent Ikithon is struck through by a beam of light.

Caleb takes a step forward. And another. And another.

Trent throws a bolt of energy, and Caleb’s hand darts out to intercept it, and the spell just _vanishes_ in the air, and now, yes, Trent looks afraid, with that white fire plunged into his chest. Nott smiles a jagged, biting grin. She’s _proud_ that Caleb is burning the man who ruined him. It’s the best kind of vengeance.

Caleb starts forward again, and Trent casts another spell, and that Caleb bats away as well, and his hand returns to its course. A shimmering shield forms around Trent, and Caleb’s fire touches it, and it vanishes.

And Caleb takes another step, and his hand hits Trent’s chest with a little _thump_ like half a heartbeat. Trent makes a small sound. Caleb’s eyes are fixed somewhere far in the distance.

The world _flickers_ again, and Trent begins to burn.

The flames spread around him, rising slowly, unhurried. Trent’s mouth opens, and his head bends back, his hands claw at the air. Caleb is perfectly still. _Flicker_.

It would be quick, Caleb told them. The touch of this fire, this spell, can unmake anything. Restore the world to another reality, just the same but better. Another possibility, like the dodecahedron said. It would only take the slightest touch to burn not just Trent but the memory of him away.

But Caleb is still casting the spell, and the fire is still blazing, and Trent is still burning, and everything _flickers_ , _flickers_ , _flickers_.

Nott looks around desperately, and it’s then that she sees that Trent’s footprints are gone from the dust. As if he was never there. Trent Ikithon has never entered the stableyard.

There’s a _flicker_ , and Caleb straightens, just barely. His ankle aligns, his knee pops into place, and Nott remembers when Caleb told her that under Trent’s training, desperate to please, he had once broken the joints of his leg beyond repair. That, too, has been erased, as surely as the footprints. And the scar on Caleb’s chin, from a fight last year— that’s gone, as though it had never happened.

And Nott can’t blame Caleb at all, if he saw the chance to erase every mark Trent Ikithon left on his life.

But wouldn’t that mean he’d never be in prison? So he’d never meet her, and they’d never meet the Mighty Nein—

The fire burns brighter and hotter still, devouring reality in its hungry maw. There’s a _flicker_ , and Nott sees brocade and velvet on Caleb’s shoulders, and then the fire is so bright she cannot see, and suddenly the world buckles and _flickers_ and everything shifts—

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The magic Caleb uses in this chapter is patterned after balefire from the Wheel of Time series. (The idea of Caleb using balefire is actually what inspired this fic.) The flickers are also from WoT, as is a considerable bit of the meta that went into this fic. WoT is very worth reading if you’re into high fantasy.
> 
> The next (and last) chapter will be posted tomorrow instead of Wednesday, because my week is about to get very busy.
> 
> Next up: Resonance. (Last chapter!!)


	10. Resonance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> resonance, n. 1. The motion of the aftereffects of a change. 2. The ability to remain stable while shifting. 3. The recognition of deeply held truth.

Evening finds Caleb and the Mighty Six in the parlor of Widogast Mansion. It’s odd that they were strangers two days ago, Caleb thinks, considering how natural it is to ruffle Nott’s hair, to snap Frumpkin onto Yasha’s shoulder, to pass around a bottle of whiskey and a jug of ale and a tankard of milk— to exist, here, with all of them.

“The festivals in Nicodranas are _beautiful_ ,” Jester’s saying, “so much bigger than anywhere else, obviously, and there are fireworks every night.” She gasps. “I should take you all there! Fjord, shouldn’t we take them there?”

Fjord looks a little bemused. “Sure,” he says, “sure, we could do that.”

“Once I’m allowed to come back, of course,” Jester says.

Molly is reclining on the couch, leaning on Yasha with a glass in one hand. “Are the festivals bigger than Hupperdook?” he asks Jester, grinning in a way that says he wants to tease. Strange how Caleb knows that. But then, not strange at all.

“Well,” Jester says, “really, they’re bigger, because Nicodranas is a _lot_ bigger than Hupperdook. But the festivals aren’t really every night. You can still find parties, though.”

“Are there a lot of shiny things?” Nott asks. Her mask and hood are down, hanging around her neck, and her sharp teeth show when she smiles.

Jester smiles back. “Yes! Everything is shiny in Nicodranas.”

“Shouldn’t have told her that,” Beau drawls. “Now we’ll have someone else get banned from there forever.” She says it with the same tone and expression as always, but there is an ease to the way she holds her head that makes it a joke, rather than a taunt.

“I’m not banned _forever_ ,” Jester says.

“No, she has a point,” Nott says sheepishly. “Sometimes I just get the itch. Especially when there’s a lot of shiny things.”

“Are there flowers in Nicodranas?” Yasha asks quietly.

Jester nods. “Little purple ones called harebells, and whole fields of daisies and black-eyed-susans. And there are window baskets in the city, too. My mother grew miniature roses.”

There’s a little smile on Yasha’s lips. “I would like to see that.”

“And Caleb has to come,” Nott says.

“ _Ja_ , I would like that,” Caleb says, because he would.

“You’d come with us?” Fjord asks. “We know you’re busy and all—”

“No. No, I would like to come,” Caleb says. “Sometime. You all are an enjoyable lot.”

“Aw, _Caleb_ ,” Beau says.

Caleb ducks his head, knowing he must be blushing.           

“No, you know what, you’re right,” Molly says. “We’re very enjoyable. It’ll be fun.”

“Road trip!” Jester cheers, putting her hands in the air.

“But that’s a good point,” Fjord says. “We need to think about what we’re gonna do now. Cause we need to tell the Lawmaster _something_.”

“Oh, right, we were supposed to be catching the murderer,” Beau says. “Yeah, we gotta tell her something.”

“We’re not turning Caleb in,” Nott says.

“For a crime no one can even prove happened?” Molly says, laughing. “No. We’re keeping our wizard.”

Caleb does smile at that. “ _Ja_ , well, I would hope so.”

“But then what do we tell her?” Jester asks. “Sorry, Lawmaster Stormgrasp, Trent got murdered by someone in another dimension, but he’s nice now and he would never murder anyone?”

Molly shrugs. “Not too bad.”

Beau sighs. “Lawmaster Stormgrasp, we believe Trent was the victim of an unexplained and untraceable phenomenon recently discovered by Archmage Headmaster Widogast.”

“That was really good, Beau,” Fjord says. “Uh, if you don’t mind my asking, where’d you come up with that?”

Beau shrugs. “Heard it.”

Caleb recognized the cadence of Beau’s voice in that sentence, which was approximately twice as long as it needed to be. Academic jargon. “ _Ja_ , I think that will work,” he says. “You could mention the godly intervention, perhaps. Although not the gods involved.”

Beau nods. “Forces beyond our knowledge. Sure.”

“You can tell her to ask me as well, if need be,” Caleb adds. “She will believe me if she does not believe you.”

“I kind of like this,” Molly says, glib and easy. “Neither the murderer or the victim technically exist anymore. Can hardly prove there was a murder at all.”

“It does get us out of trouble,” Yasha agrees.

“You aren’t worried about it at all?” Caleb asks. “Knowing that you helped me assassinate someone?”

“Well, we technically helped assassinate someone, technically,” Jester says.

“We did do that,” Fjord agrees.

Beau nods. “So this isn’t really that far off.”

Caleb stares at the Mighty Six. “I will regret asking this, but… who did you help assassinate?”

“High Richter Prucine,” Fjord says.

“We weren’t the ones who assassinated her,” Molly says. “Ulog assassinated her.”

“We _helped_ ,” Jester says, “that’s what I said.”

Caleb takes a long drink from his glass. “I regret asking.”

“She was really corrupt,” Nott says.

“ _Ja_ , okay, I am not— I think you would not have killed someone if there was not a good reason.”

“Yeah,” Beau says, “yeah, we wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t deserve it. Also if we weren’t getting paid.”

Caleb turns enough to give her a disapproving look. “You were doing so well, Beauregard.” He pauses. “Ah— out of curiosity— do you do jobs like that often?”

“Haven’t done many like that lately,” Fjord says. “We’re working for Lawmaster Stormgrasp on a case-by-case basis. And, uh… other parties.”

Caleb nods. “All right. On the assumption that you should not tell an Archmage about these other parties—”

“Definitely should not,” Nott says.

“—yes, thank you, on that assumption, you might tell me when you are doing something— ah— aboveboard? Something a little less sketchy?”

The Mighty Six share a glance.

“Can’t imagine the Lawmaster would be too miffed,” Molly says, shrugging.

“Might be good to have another spellcaster,” Fjord agrees.

Jester directs a glare at Caleb. “Can you heal yourself?”

“No? But I can supply healing potions if that’s something—”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jester says, “yes to the healing potions.”

“We’re constantly understocked,” Molly says. “With the war and all.”

Beau eyes Caleb. “You asking to come along?”

“To fight with you,” Caleb says, “if you’ll have me. I think we have something here, _ja_? We were meant to find each other. The gods, they had a vested interest in guiding us together. I can only think that we should stay together.” They’ve been circling this subject all evening, the vast wilderness of _what to do next_ , and Caleb finds his heart has dropped out of his chest as he broaches the topic.

“Yes, of course,” Nott says, and part of Caleb’s heart returns. She looks to the rest of the group. “Right?”

“I don’t see why not,” Molly says.

Beau nods. “Sure.”

“You’re one of us,” Fjord says.

Jester beams. “Yes, come with us!”

“Yes,” Yasha says. “I think we should. You should.”

“ _Ja_ , then it is settled,” Caleb says.

Molly raises his glass. “To new beginnings,” he says, “and to Caleb Widogast and the Mighty Six.”

“To new beginnings!” Caleb and the rest of the Six cheer, as one, raising their glasses and tankards.

“Oh, no,” Jester says suddenly.

Fjord looks over at her. “What is it, Jess?”

“We’re going to have to pick a new name,” Jester says. “Since there aren’t six of us anymore.”

“The Mighty Seven?” Nott suggests.

Molly shakes his head. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“The Super Seven,” Beau tries. “The Sensational Seven. The Magnificent Seven.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that one before,” Fjord says.

“ _Nein_ , Mighty was a good name,” Caleb says, and he’s about to say more when Jester cuts him off.

“The Mighty Nein!” she cheers, and it sounds _right_ , even though it doesn’t make any sense at all, really.

“The Mighty Nein?” Molly says. “I’ll take it.”

“The Mighty Nein,” Beau says with a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty good. The Mighty Nein!”

Caleb looks around at the rest of the Mighty Nein, sitting in his parlor, drinking and laughing and just existing, but existing _together_ — he’s thankful, deeply and suddenly, that they knocked on his door late that night and found him after all.

 

The universe spins softly on its axes, set right for the first time since Caleb Widogast crossed paths with Trent Ikithon. Their first meeting knocked the world off-kilter; their last sent it spinning far astray. This was known to the greater powers of the universe, who worked in cooperation this once. That band of adventurers is too important to their purposes to leave incomplete.

 

The storm passes, and most of the Mighty Nein leave Rexxentrum under a sky full of sunlight. Beau turns her face up to it, shakes her long coat back. Nott sits up at the front of the cart, hood lowered. Molly lounges in the cart with his cards, and Jester lies flat on her back, finding shapes in the clouds. Fjord looks far down the road. Yasha watches the mountains in the hazy distance. They look back, occasionally, toward Rexxentrum.

 

Caleb knocks on Astrid’s office door, hears her shout, “It’s open!”, and walks in. Astrid and Eodwulf are both there, holding mugs of coffee.

“Did they leave?” Eodwulf asks.

Caleb nods. “They left. But they’ll be back. We’ve discussed working together. I think I can convince the Assembly that it will be good for me to take leave on occasion.” He finds himself wanting to look towards the road his friends are on, but he knows he can’t possibly see them from here. Instead he tells Eodwulf and Astrid, a smile breaking across his face, “But you know— you will be happy to hear this— I finally realized why I am so shit at Detect Magic.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first chapter note seems to be glitching, so: Critical Role and the Wheel of Time are not my property, and I can be found @swallowtailed on Tumblr.
> 
> I’m thinking about writing up some of the meta that went into this AU and fic, so that might be posted as another chapter. 
> 
> Thoughts? Questions? Let me know in the comments! 
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone who commented or left kudos. You made my day :)
> 
> Next up: they all live happily ever after. (Seriously, they do. I got so many comments about how this can’t possibly end well, but this is the Good Timeline! To some extent, anyway.)


	11. (Liner Notes)

Hello and welcome to the liner notes for Resonance! There’s a lot going on in this fic that I didn’t get to directly explain or address, so I wanted to talk about it a bit.

 

CHOSEN ONES

The key idea that sets up this AU is that Caleb was the Chosen One. He isn’t really anymore, because you can’t be the Chosen One and also in an ensemble cast, but he absolutely was at one point.

What we know of the specifics of Caleb’s childhood is limited, but here’s what he says in episode 18 during his conversation with Beau and Nott:

“Everyone was very excited about me when I was young. I was bright and confident. People used to say that I glided through life and everything just worked for me. As I got older, it became clear that I had a knack for the arcane. Everyone talked about this Soltryce Academy, maybe I would go there someday. […] But when I was a young man, adolescent, really, they found three of us. Another boy and a girl […] From Blumenthal. And we were accepted. […] It came easier to me than the other two.” [TIMESTAMP??]

So that’s super typical of Chosen Ones. You have your supernaturally skilled protagonist who slowly manifests magic powers and eventually gets picked up by people who know a lot about those magic powers. There are other variants on this, but the magic school plotline is particularly common (think Harry Potter). And, of course, the protagonist is the best at whatever skill they have.

The important thing about the Chosen One is that they’re chosen _for_ something. It’s there in the name. And Caleb sure was chosen… by the wrong person. In the absence of anyone else, Trent Ikithon gained influence over Caleb and sent him in a different direction. The reason this worked, of course, is that if Trent hadn’t gone as far as he did, Caleb’s storyline would have followed the classic Chosen One arc in service of the Empire— rigorous training to serve a higher purpose. He probably would’ve single-handedly won the war against Xhorhas as the culmination of his story. (And, assuming some thematic consistency, he’d probably be involved in the time manipulation research going on at the Academy right now.)

I’m gonna get a little meta for a second. We all know the Chosen One storyline. It appears countless times in countless variations. I think we can probably assume that there are Chosen One stories in Exandria, especially given the direct divine influence that sometimes crops up. So Caleb, as a Chosen One, had a certain amount of influence on the world around him, just by dint of how his life was going. There’s an expectation (on some level) that he’s going to do great things. Exandria, being a world made up of stories, is probably prone to this anyway. I’ve been calling this “narrative inertia”— a story moving along a certain arc will continue along its arc unless it encounters a plot twist. The better-established a story is, the stronger its narrative inertia is. It took _murdering his parents_ to redirect Caleb from the Chosen One arc.

Trent Ikithon was never supposed to get involved with the Chosen One’s storyline. Chosen Ones aren’t supposed to be brainwashed and coerced into murdering their parents. (Chosen Ones are supposed to exact revenge upon whoever murdered their parents, which is tricky when that person is you.) So, even though the first 17-ish years of Caleb’s life followed a Chosen One arc, there’s a different path Caleb was supposed to take. And that’s basically where this AU came from: trying to piece together what should have happened in a world without Trent in it. In my “best timeline” scenario, Caleb grows up, graduates from the Soltryce Academy, and joins the Cerberus Assembly. He proceeds to live a content but narratively boring life, because in this timeline he’s never actually chosen for anything. All his potential is just kind of channeled into reading a lot of books and running the Academy.

And then the Mighty Six show up.

The other important thing about Chosen Ones is their impact on the world around them. Probably the coolest example of this is the Wheel of Time series. (I said I’d get into this.) In the Wheel of Time, certain people are “ _ta’veren_ ”, meaning they can affect the Pattern of the Wheel of Time. Rand al’Thor, the most _ta’veren_ of all _ta’veren_ , can convince people to follow him just by standing near them. His storyline literally alters reality because of how Chosen One he is. A very similar thing happens with RPG characters. NPCs will do things they wouldn’t normally do, or are very unlikely to do, because a PC showed up and rolled well. So, in RPG terms, all PCs are basically Chosen Ones.

What this means for Caleb in this AU (and in canon) is that he _is_ chosen for something, and it’s whatever the Mighty Nein end up doing later in the campaign. So, when the Mighty Six appear and yank him into their combined Chosen One storylines, his own storyline sort of realigns with theirs, and ta-da, all the Chosen Ones are back together again to do their Chosen One thing and change the world. The narrative inertia is restored.

On a related note, if Caleb’s the Chosen One, Astrid and Eodwulf make up the Golden Trio. I based Astrid and Eodwulf’s characters off a couple other trios (Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Wheel of Time come to mind). Astrid is the clever, mischevious one. Eodwulf is the golden retriever of a best friend. You probably know exactly what character archetypes I’m talking about.

 

MAGICAL SHENANIGANS

A lot of the really interesting magic in this fic is from the Wheel of Time series— in particular, balefire. Instead of just killing things, balefire erases them from reality, unraveling part of the Age Lace that’s spun in the Pattern of the Wheel of Time. The more you use, the farther back the Pattern is unraveled. In one book, a boat was erased with balefire, and everyone in the boat suddenly had been floating down the river instead. Balefire seemed like a fitting mechanic for Caleb because it combines fire and reality manipulation. (The easiest D&D equivalent of this would probably be Wish with flavor text.) And actually, that’s where the idea for this fic started— I watched episode 18 and immediately started theorizing, and I was also finishing WoT at the time, so my mind immediately went to balefire. It’s just a really neat mechanic.

Another Wheel of Time mechanic I borrowed is the flickers in Interlude IV. The flickers are from early in the series, during a scene where a group of people try to travel by magical means and accidentally start slipping between different versions of reality. Every flicker marks the switch into a new possibility. I settled on using it to show the unraveling of reality as Caleb continued to channel balefire, cause it’s just a cool image, and also scared the shit out of me when I read it in WoT. ((This article summarizes the scene in question: <https://www.tor.com/2009/02/23/the-wheel-of-time-re-read-the-great-hunt-part-7/> It won’t spoil anything in particular. The important part is the summary of chapter 37, which is the first section in the article.))

And of course, Detect Magic. I did look up the D&D Beyond page, but I did that while writing chapter 5, to check the area of effect. So I don’t know how Detect Magic works, but also, I don’t care. My city now.

Anyway, the deal with Detect Magic in this fic is that Caleb is seeing the aura of his spell because he was the one to cast it. And this does actually make logical sense, sort of! Think of it this way: if Caleb built a time machine to physically go back in time and kill Trent, then returned to the future, he would still remember that he went back in time and changed something. But from everyone else’s perspective, Trent would always have been mysteriously killed twenty years ago. They wouldn’t be able to tell that anything was different. Extrapolating from that, even though Caleb no longer remembers casting the spell, he still did it, so from his perspective he can see that something has changed— but nobody else can, because from their perspectives, the world’s always been that way.

As for the really just excessive amount of godly intervention, any beings that exist outside the Prime Material Plane can tell that something’s fucked up. That includes gods (the Traveler, the Stormlord, the Moonweaver), eldritch entities (Fjord’s patron), and fey creatures (Frumpkin). All those entities have a vested interest in one or another member of the Mighty Nein, so given the Nein’s narrative inertia, it seems reasonable that they’d want to get them all back together.

 

AND A FEW OTHER THINGS

All the definitions of “resonance” I referenced are accurate. The first meaning is the resonance of a guitar or a cup of water— the way it vibrates when you hit it. Basically the ripple effect. The second meaning is from atomic physics, where resonance is the property of an atomic structure that can have several electron configurations but still be stable. (I was studying for a chemistry exam while planning this fic, okay.) The third meaning is from something resonating emotionally with you. Also, fun fact, the working title for this fic was Reality Storm.

On Molly: I set up the Interludes because  I wanted to flesh out exactly what Caleb did, and I knew nobody would find anything out for real in the new timeline. Off that, I decided I was going to set the Interludes firmly in canon. But then Molly died. So I panicked for a couple weeks and then decided, fine, Molly’s just gonna be alive in this AU, and the Interludes will exist in a slight AU. The explanation for that, of course, is that the Mighty Nein decided not to go to Shady Creek Run, and thus neatly avoided the Iron Shepherds. (In the new timeline, the explanation is basically the same.)

((If Molly was dead,  I know the conversation I’d have to write, and it basically goes like this:

_“I must ask,” Caleb says, “was there— was there someone else?”_

_“Someone else?”_

_“In your group. Our group.” He doesn’t have to explain what he means. Yasha places her hand on her belt, where Caleb recalls that a moon-shaped symbol hangs. Jester’s face is strangely sorrowful._

_“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Beau says at last. “Molly to his friends.”_

_“Mollymauk,” Caleb says, feeling the name on his tongue. “Who was he?” The past tense feels wrong, but he knows it must be true._

_“I wish you could’ve met him,” Nott says. “You would’ve loved him.”_ ))

To be fair, assigning the OG Mighty Nein such an important role in the universe glosses over whatever Caduceus will go on to do in the future and the long-term effect that Molly’s death will have on the rest of the Nein. But canon changes so quickly in Critical Role ( _four hours of improvised storyline every week_ ) that any attempts to stay canon-compliant will inevitably fall through at some point.

 

My process tag for this fic is "#reality storm fic" on my Tumblr (@swallowtailed). If you're curious, that tag contains thematically appropriate fanart, assorted meta, process notes, and general writing panic. Also some writing music recs.

Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! 
> 
> This fic is complete, and new chapters will be posted on Wednesdays. 
> 
> Questions about this AU? Feel free to ask! I may not answer if it’s a spoiler for this fic, but I will happily talk about AU characterization and the Chosen One archetype. 
> 
> I’m @swallowtailed on Tumblr, so you can find me there as well. 
> 
> The characters, setting, etc. of Critical Role are not my property. 
> 
> Next up: A Rumor In Rexxentrum.


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